Hammond Innes - Golden Soak

Another long day waiting out the heat, and then, the sun just dipping below the sand-sea horizon, we started driving, heading straight into the last of the daylight. There were new drifts of sand now, the going bad in places and frequent stops to cool the engine. We had two punctures that night and we only made 432 miles, a lot of it in four-wheel drive.

‘You in a more reasonable frame of mind?’

‘What do you mean?’

Tom had rigged us a shelter of sorts and Kennie was propped up on one elbow, staring at me, his sun-blistered body chequered with the light beams coming through the furze.

‘You were pretty crazed when I found you yesterday morning.’

‘You didn’t find us. We found you.’

‘Have it your own way.’

My hands gripped hard on the mug I was holding. ‘All right,’ I said, my mouth, my whole throat hurting. ‘You lit a fire so we knew where you were.’ The mug was hot, the tea too scalding to drink, and I was sweating, a feeling of nausea creeping up from my guts.

‘What happened?’ he asked. ‘All you said was he walked out into that sandstorm.’

‘That’s right.’ My throat was sore and I found it difficult to formulate my words.

‘Christ, man. You can’t just leave it at that. There must be something more.’

I shook my head and then he was leaning forward, gripping my arm. ‘For God’s sake, Alec — a man doesn’t just walk out — into a sandstorm — for no reason. That’s what you said. That he just walked out. While you were huddled in a blanket.’

There was a long silence. Finally he let go of my arm. ‘You don’t want to talk about it.’

‘No.’ How the hell could I explain to him the complicated motives of a man who had reached the point of no return. Even if I understood them myself.

He sucked noisily at his tea. ‘Okay, I’m your pal and you won’t talk to me. So what are you going to tell the police? And there’s Janet. What are you going to tell Janet?’

Oh Christ! I thought. Couldn’t he leave it alone? Just accept the truth of it. ‘God damn you,’ I muttered. ‘Shut up, can’t you.’ That strange feeling was there still, the feeling that Ed Garrety and I had changed places, that with his death I had somehow stepped into his shoes. ‘It’s crazy.’ I heard my voice, a hoarse whisper, and he had heard it too.

‘Did you find the Monster? Was it there, where he died?’ He was staring at me intently.

‘No. No, of course it wasn’t.’

‘Then why did Garrety stop there — a rira Tom said. That’s a geological formation.’

‘There was no copper,’ I said. ‘Now shut up, can’t you.’

‘But you know where it is?’

‘Shut up, for Christ’s sake,’ I screamed at nun.

His hand was on my arm again, shaking me. ‘He told you, didn’t he? You got it out of him — the location of Mcllroy’s Monster?’

Something in the way he said it made me hold my breath, staring at him. ‘What the hell are you getting at?’ In that moment I hated him.

He saw that, for he hesitated, licking his lips. And then he blurted out, ‘Only that you got the rotor arm out of him, and I thought …’

‘You stupid, mean-minded little fool!’ He was cringing away from me, scared of my anger and the croaking fury of my voice ‘What the hell do you know about a man like Ed Garrety? He didn’t go into the desert after the monster …’ I stopped there, leaning back, panting. Christ! The boy was right. If Ed Garrety wasn’t prospecting, then what the hell was he doing? I was thinking of Janet then, wondering how I could ever face her if I came out of the Gibson saying her father had taken his life because of a murder he had committed thirty years ago.

I drank the rest of my tea slowly, conscious of Kennie watching me all the time. Then I decided to close my eyes and tried to sleep. God, what a mess! And no way out that I could see.

We got going again shortly after five, and just before sunset a single-engine plane came over. It must have picked up our dust streamer for it came in very low from the north, circled us slowly, then headed back into the fireball blaze that was reddening sky and desert.

We made better progress that night, fewer stops and only one puncture. We caught a frozen ice-glint glimpse of the great salt lake in the dawn and by nine we had reached Karara Soaks The police were waiting for us there, a sergeant and a constable with two Land-Rovers and native trackers. The sergeant had a warrant for my arrest.

Fremantle Gaol, 30th April,1970.

Well, there it is — the whole truth of how I came to Australia and what happened to me there. I have been working on it for over two-and-half months, sometimes in the library, sometimes in my cell here. At least I have been honest with myself, or as honest as I am ever likely to be, and now that it is finished I shall give it to my lawyer and he will have to decide how much needs to be revealed in my defence when the Lone Minerals action comes up for hearing in a fortnight’s time. In any case, it has served some purpose. It has kept me mentally occupied so that I’m still reasonably sane, even if I have been living in a kind of vacuum.

The only thing that really worries me is Janet. I would like to have broken the news of her father’s death to her myself. But the sergeant took me straight to the police station at Mt Newman. I had pustules on my legs where the spinifex spines had set up sores that were beginning to turn septic and he wasn’t taking any chances. It was 70 miles to Jarra Jarra and 70 back — another day’s driving. ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘she’ll have heard of it by now.’ Which was probably true since he had radioed a report back from the Soaks.

I have written to her, of course. I did that shortly after I arrived here, a difficult letter because I did not want her to know how McIlroy had met his death or that her father had deliberately gone out into that sandstorm. I thought she might have read between the lines and guessed it was suicide, but maybe she didn’t want to. Maybe she wanted to believe that I was in some way to blame for his death. At any rate, I have had no letter from her, not a line all the time I have been here — 81 days to be exact. I don’t blame her, and with the station wrapped round her neck, all the problems of her father’s death magnified by the financial mess he was in, she probably hasn’t much time. But I am sorry all the same. Somehow a letter from her would have made a difference. And Kennie … Kennie might have made an effort to see me.

It was the feeling of being alone in Australia, without one single friend, that started me writing a full account of all that had happened. I finished it yesterday. I suppose the idea originated from that journal, a record while it was still clear in my mind. As I say, it kept me sane in my solitary, friendless state, cooped up in my cell here with the sunlight swinging across the bare little room, day giving way to night, to dawn again and the glimpse of an endlessly blue sky, my weekly visits to the remand court at Perth the only relief from the monotony of it.

My lawyer has been almost my only visitor, a short, dark man, with eyes that dart restlessly, behind heavy-framed glasses. His name is Chick Draper, and although his manner is deliberately abrupt, he is a kind fellow and has taken a great deal of trouble on my behalf, even though he knows he hasn’t much hope of a worthwhile fee. It started as a straightforward immigration case — entering the country under a false name and with a false passport. He advised me to plead guilty, since the alternative might be extradition to face criminal charges of arson and fraud in England. This I did and was remanded in custody pending further inquiries. I hadn’t enough money for bail, even if they would have granted it, so there was nothing for it but to watch the Australian autumn fading into winter from my cell while the immigration people and my lawyer tried to sort the tangle out. And then just when he thought he was getting somewhere, he was faced with the further charge of fraud while on Australian soil.