Hammond Innes - Golden Soak

For a moment, just for a moment, I thought of telling him it was the location. But then he said, ‘You tell me Chris was wrong and we can move petrol up to the Stock Route and have a helicopter and a geologist on the spot inside a week.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Culpin was right. It’s a conglomerate formation.’ I didn’t want him sending a helicopter in when the real location was only twenty or thirty miles from the Kurrajong Soak. They could easily fly a radial search.

‘So where is it then?’

I didn’t answer.

‘For Christ’s sake don’t be a fool, Alec. You can’t handle a thing like this on your own. It needs a consortium. And if Les goes ahead with this case, you’ll be in prison for a long time.’

I still didn’t say anything. I was thinking of Ed Garrety and his love of Jarra Jarra, the hopes he’d had, the dreams. Giving me that battered wallet, he had handed to me on trust — an obligation, a challenge perhaps. It wasn’t something I could just give away, even if it did mean my liberty. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I did that.

‘Look,’ Kadek said. ‘You’ll get three years at least. Don’t think in those three years nobody’ll go looking for the Monster. They will. And they’ll find it. Everybody’s talking about it. Prospectors, I mean. A man dying like that, a mining man with him at the time — just because you’re out of touch, don’t imagine they haven’t put two-and-two together. If it’s there, they’ll find it all right, so you might just as well …’

‘Go to hell!’ I said, and I got to my feet. I was angry then, angry at myself for being tempted. Nobody likes the prospect of wasting three years of their life, and I knew he was right. Three years was what my lawyer had said. ‘If there is copper there, then it belongs to Janet Garrety.’

‘It doesn’t belong to anybody. You know that.’ He had followed me slowly to his feet. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll leave you now. But think it over. There’s no immediate hurry. Nobody can peg a claim at the moment, and it may be a month or two yet before the ban is lifted. So you’ve still some time. And your lawyer knows where to contact me.’

I didn’t understand what he was talking about. ‘What ban?’ I asked.

‘Didn’t you know? The Minister of Mines imposed a ban on pegging so that mining registrars could catch up with the backlog.’

‘When?’ I asked. ‘When was the ban imposed?’

‘Initially on January 22, and then on February 3 he announced he was reserving all Crown land. Nobody could peg after that.’ He tucked his briefcase under his arm. ‘Well, you think about it.’ In addition to dropping the charges, I’m sure I could persuade Les to do something for you personally if it turned out as big as the name implies. Mining consultant to the consortium throughout the development period. That would set you up in Australia for the rest of your life.’ Again that tight-lipped smile. ‘Think about it. And when you’ve made up your mind, all you have to do is tell your lawyer feller. Okay?’

He left me then, and when I got back to my cell, all I could think about was that Chris Culpin had pegged the hollow on Coondewanna the very day the ban had been imposed. That claim of his had never been registered and couldn’t be registered until the ban was lifted. I wrote to Janet that night, and then I started on my manuscript. By then, you see, I knew there was something in me that prevented my ever bartering the possibility of freedom for the knowledge Ed Garrety had passed on to me. It might be nonsense but it didn’t matter. I suddenly found I had principles, and at a time when I could least afford them. A bit of a joke that.

I have described the interview with Kadek in detail in an endeavour to explain my own irrational behaviour. Maybe it was in character. I don’t know. Or maybe I’ve grown up a bit during the days I’ve spent in prison. Again, I don’t know. I’m so cut off, so solitary — but at least I have come to terms with myself. I no longer belong to Kadek’s world, or to Rosa’s. I’m not the man who set fire to Drym. I’m somebody else now, though my name is still Alec Wentworth Falls and I still inhabit the same body.

But perhaps it isn’t the days in prison. Perhaps it was the days in the Gibson Desert that changed me. And Ed Garrety. Particularly Ed Garrety. To go back there. To go back to the place of his crime, in search of peace, knowing he was dying — and then to end it, quickly, cleanly. How can you betray a man like that? How can you not be influenced by him? A term in prison is nothing to the long years he was imprisoned within himself, and if, by accepting my fate, I can achieve something of the same moral stature … God help me, I am not made of the same material, but at least I can try.

Fremantle Gaol, 1st May, 1970.

I was released from prison on Monday, May 18, following a brief court hearing at which the authorities dropped their charges of illegal entry. The criminal charges of fraud in connection with the Blackridge prospect had also been withdrawn. Even the possibility of extradition had become remote. As my lawyer explained, for the insurance company to succeed with their charges of obtaining money by false pretences, when it was Rosa who had put in the claim, they would have to prove either complicity or arson. He thought, in the circumstances, I would hear no more from them now that my identity was accepted by the Commonwealth Department of Immigration. ‘There’s no law against a man leaving his wife, and since we now have evidence that she has been cohabiting with a man on Rottnest Island …’ He left it at that with a smile and a broad shrug.

It’s a strange feeling to suddenly find yourself free again after being held on remand for so long — a hundred days exactly. And though nobody in their senses would say that they have enjoyed being in prison, I cannot say that I regretted it or that I actively disliked it. This may seem strange, but it gave me opportunity to take stock, something I had not had time to do since I landed at Fremantle on December 27. In a way it was like being back at school, or in the services, for it enabled me to get to know an extraordinary cross-section of Australians, some good, some bad, but most of them men I should not have come across otherwise. There were other nationalities there, of course, but it was the Australians that interested me, and those hundred days, living in that close, ever-changing community, taught me a great deal about the country and the people. I do not recommend it as essential training for immigrants, but it is certainly one way of attending a crash course on the behaviour pattern of men whose grass roots are very different to those of almost any other nation. And I came out of prison, not in any state of uncertainty or depression, but knowing exactly what I intended to do, my mind wonderfully clarified, my metabolism like a dynamo recharged and my senses sharpened. I celebrated by staying the night at the Parmelia, a luxurious room with a view over the Swan River and a meal I still remember.

The fortnight before my release had been relatively crowded. Three days after I had finished my manuscript Kennie came to see me. He was on his way back from a survey down near Yornup in the South West. He had a letter from his mother telling him that she was still on her own and that his rather was at Nullagine trying to organize an expedition in the Gibson. ‘That letter was written on the 2nd, so he’s probably out there now. There’s talk, you see, that the pegging ban will be lifted soon.’ And he added, ‘I’d hate to think Pa and that partner of his are going to grab the Monster while you’re stuck in here awaiting trial.’ He had guessed that Kadek had had something to do with my arrest and he felt sorry for me, which somehow annoyed me. And he annoyed me even more when he said he had been to see Janet the day after we reached Ml Newman. ‘She took it badly, you know. The old man’s death. Have you heard from her at all?’