Flight of the Jabiru (39 page)

“Is anyone there? I need help!” Ross cut the motor and looked around but couldn't see anyone. “Are you on the boat?” he called back.

“No. I'm over here in the reeds.”

“In the reeds!” Ross was alarmed to hear that and turned into Sampan Creek and went past the moored boat. Up ahead, in long reeds, he saw a dingy with a cage on top that took up almost the entire length and width. As he got closer he was amazed to see a large, angry crocodile trapped inside the cage. “Where are you?” Ross called out again.

“Over here,” Rick called back.

Ross pulled alongside the dingy and saw Rick half lying on the far side of the trap. “What on earth are you doing?”

“My arm is stuck under the trap,” he said.

Ross always kept his rifle handy. He immediately took aim at the crocodile.

“What are you doing?” Rick called to him in a panic.

“I'm not going to shoot you, if that's what you think,” Ross said, setting his sights on the crocodile.

“Don't shoot the croc,” Rick said.

“I'm a good shot. I won't miss,” Ross replied.

“I'm not worried about that. I just don't want the croc killed.”

“I can't free you with that croc trying to attack us both,” Ross explained.

“Don't shoot it, please,” Rick begged.

Ross assumed Rick didn't want any holes in the croc's skin, so he could sell it for a good profit. “It could overturn the dingy while I'm trying to help you, and if it escapes, we're both goners.”

“You'd be testy, too, if you'd been in a trap in the hot sun for a few days. I got caught like this trying to let it out.”

“Is that your trap?”

“Yes,” Rick said, groaning in pain.

“Why would you trap a croc, just to set it free?” Ross asked in disbelief.

“I relocate crocs, but I forgot I'd left this trap set... Just help me get my arm out of here and I'll explain,” Rick said. He was wet with perspiration and in agony.

Ross pulled his boat into the bank, and climbed out. He assessed the situation, trying to work out the best way to proceed. The dingy had been secured to the creek bank, but all the movement inside the cage, and out, had loosened the moorings. If he hadn't happened past when he did, it would've soon been adrift with Rick at the mercy of every crocodile in the billabong. So the first thing he did was secure the dingy again.

There was a chunk of decaying meat in the cage with the very angry crocodile. It was attracting flies by the millions and stunk badly. Rick was virtually eyeballed to eyeball with the trapped crocodile, with his head only inches from the meat. Clearly the crocodile was seeing him as an easy meal and far more tempting than the meat. The animal was frustrated because he couldn't get through the wire, and growling menacingly.

Rick was trying to balance on the side of the dingy and keep his free arm and legs out of the water. He tried to hold onto the cage with his free arm, but the crocodile kept snapping at his hand. Ross didn't want to step into the water, as he had no idea what was lurking amongst the reeds, and there wasn't room for him on the dingy with Rick and the croc cage.

“The only safe way to get you out is shoot that croc,” he said, lifting his gun again.

“No,” Rick insisted.

“It's only a crocodile,” Ross said. “He'd have no qualms about eating the two of us.”

“He's a she, and her nest is nearby, so her main priority it getting back there to guard it from predators. Besides, if you shoot her, you'll never be able to drag her out of the cage, so her weight will still be on my arm.”

“If I let her out, there's every chance she'd attack you, and I'm not going to watch that,” Ross insisted. “We'll have to come up with another plan.”

“Just do it, quick,” Rick said, grimacing. He couldn't feel anything from the elbow down on the trapped arm, unless he tried to move it, and then searing pain shot right up his arm, as far as his shoulder, almost causing him to fall unconscious.

Still carrying his gun, Ross looked around for a long, strong branch that he could use for leverage. It took him a few minutes to find one. By the time he dragged it back to Rick and the croc trap, another large crocodile was making its way towards the trap and Rick. It was as close as fifteen feet.

“Don't move,” Ross called to Rick. “I'm shooting this one.” He took aim.

“No, don't,” Rick said, struggling to look over his shoulder. “Frighten it away with the tree branch.”

“Are you kidding me?” Ross said in disbelief.

“No, just do it,” Rick insisted.

“A croc could outrun me if it had to,” Ross said. He fired the gun.

“I told you not to shoot it,” Rick said in angry frustration.

“It's gone into the billabong,” Ross said. “You must've only wounded it,” he said accusingly. “Now it will suffer a terrible death.”

Ross was bewildered by Rick's attitude towards crocodiles and their mortality. “I didn't hit it,” he said. “I'm not a lousy shot, I purposely missed it. But I was only going to give it one chance. If it came for me, it was dead.” He picked up the tree branch and moved towards the trap. “Strangely, you are the second person in two days who has asked me not to kill a crocodile.” He pushed the tree branch under the cage alongside Rick's arm.

“Who was the first?” Rick asked, as Ross pushed all his weight down on the branch and he tried to pull his arm free. They heard the branch creaking, and knew it was going to break, so the second he was able, Rick pulled his arm free and rolled away from the cage, falling into the reeds.

Ross reacted and leapt forward, pulling him out of the water by the scruff of his neck. Once on dry land, they both sighed with relief. Rick's hand and wrist was badly bruised, but he could move his fingers so nothing was broken.

“I'm so grateful you came along when you did,” Rick said, wincing as he rubbed his arm to get the circulation back. “You saved my life.”

“You're also the second person I've saved from a crocodile in two days,” Ross said in amazement. “What happened?”

“The lady I rescued yesterday didn't want the croc shot either, but I had no choice. It was about to attack her while she was sleeping beside the billabong.”

“Sleeping? Obviously she wasn't aware of the crocodiles.”

“That's what I thought, so I was surprised when she told me she lived in Shady Camp. Naturally I thought she should've had more sense than to fall asleep beside a croc-infested billabong, but in her defense, she'd walked a lot of miles and was exhausted.”

Rick had hardly heard a word past, she lived in Shady Camp. He looked at Ross in amazement. “Do you know her name?” He held his breath as he waited for the answer.

“Yes, it's Lara. She's a teacher in Shady Camp and she was with another young woman, an Aboriginal called Jiana.”

Rick gasped and then his face lit up. “Lara ... is alive?” he said joyously.

“Yes, do you know her?”

“Know her. I love her,” Rick literally cried with joy, but he felt no shame as tears ran down his face.

“Oh, so you're the young man she's in love with. You should get to Shady camp and let her know you're alive. She's absolutely distraught because she thinks you went to the city to look for her and something happened to you.”

“I have been in the city looking for her and I thought ... I've got to go,” Rick said. He looked at the crocodile. “Help me get this trap door open,” he said. “It's jammed.”

“Are you mad?”

“No, come on,” Rick insisted, climbing onto the dingy again.

Ross couldn't let him do it alone so he broke a large piece of the tree branch and then climbed onto the dingy. Together, with Rick using only one arm, they pulled on the trap door. When it started to come up, Ross shoved the piece of tree branch under it. The crocodile immediately attacked it.

“She can't bite us if she has something else in her mouth,” he said.

Rick grinned, letting Ross think it was clever tactic. He didn't have the heart to tell him that the croc would have no problem biting them even with a piece of wood in its mouth. They got the door wide open and then jumped back on the bank as the crocodile came out after crushing the wood into kindling in a matter of seconds. Ross ran to his boat and Rick did the same.

“Can you manage your boat with one arm?” Ross called to Rick.

“I'm so happy I'd manage with no legs,” Rick said joyously, hardly feeling the pain in his arm. “Thank you again for saving my life, and Lara's. We owe you a great debt,” he said casting off his mooring rope.

“Just stay safe, both of you, and keep away from crocodiles,” Ross called.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Lying on her bed, Lara watched a gecko dart across the ceiling and devour an insidious spider with a sense of uncharacteristic detachment. Normally the sight of something scuttling or crawling would be enough to have her frantically searching for the broom, but her senses were numb with grief, so she rolled onto her side and gazed out of the window at the trees and billabong.

Somewhere in the dark recess of her mind she thought she heard the engine of a boat. For just a second her heart leapt with joy, but then she realized she was imagining things. Several times she'd thought she heard a boat, only to run to the jetty and be disappointed.

Rick had been watching his fuel gauge, which was dangerously low, and anxiously praying he made it back to Shady Camp. He estimated he was a mile away when his engine cut out.

“Christ! No,” he yelled in frustration, his voice echoing across the billabong, and sending Ibis and Jabiru into flight. He cussed his bad luck. With not a breath of breeze it was no use unfurling the sail. With momentum, he managed to drift close enough to an enormous gum tree that overhung the water by fifteen feet. Grabbing a rope, he lassoed a bough so that he wouldn't drift into the middle of the billabong, which would've been disastrous. He was no better off. He couldn't chance swimming even such a short distance to land with several crocodiles sunning themselves not too far along the bank. The only alternative was climbing into the tree, but with one injured hand and arm, it was going to be difficult and there was always the risk that a bough would break, dropping him into the jaws of a waiting crocodile.

Rick finally decided he had no choice. He had to climb the tree. He'd hardly seen a soul on the billabong for days, apart from his lifesaver, so another rescue was unlikely.

It was agony with an injured arm, but Rick managed to pull himself up into the tree. He was precariously hanging over water when he heard a terrifying creak. The bough was about to break. His heart almost stopped as there was a crocodile cunningly waiting in the shallows right below and he'd land right in its open jaws. Just in the nick of time he moved to a stronger bough, and the smaller branch crashed to the water. The crocodile snapped at it with lightning speed, and he heard the bough crush like splinter wood in its jaws. Shuddering, he quickly moved to another bough, and dropped from the tree onto land. He took a moment to collect himself and allow his rapid heartbeat to slow, then began walking, keeping a look out for snakes and crocodiles.

By the time Rick reached the settlement, an agonizingly slow journey through thick vegetation, he was weary and it was already late afternoon. As he approached the rectory, he felt overwhelmed with relief. Desperate to see Lara, he tried the door, only to find it locked. He knocked and then thumped on it with one fist in frustration, wondering why absolutely nothing was going his way.

Lara thought she heard knocking, but she didn't want to see any of the locals, including the children, so she ignored it. She covered her head with a pillow and didn't hear Rick calling her name.

Frustrated, Rick headed to the hotel, assuming he'd find Lara there.

Sitting along the bar with their backs to the doorway, Monty, Charlie, Rex, and Jonno were having a beer, and animatedly discussing what could be done about the air-raid shelter, which resembled a muddy indoor swamp. They didn't hear Rick come in.

“We can only bail the water out by bucket,” Rex said. “Or wait for it to seep away.”

“It'll be like a quagmire in there for months, a breeding ground for mosquitoes, with no sun to dry it out. I think you should just fill it in, Monty,” Jonno suggested.

Monty wasn't yet ready to give up the shelter, but there'd be much work to do to make it safe and dry again. “I'm not going back to that cave, even if we are invaded by the Japs,” he insisted. “No matter what I do, I can still smell bat pee on my clothes.”

Rick tapped Monty on the shoulder and he turned around in surprise, expecting to find Colin asking for a beer. “Saints preserve us!” he spluttered.

“What's up with you?” Rex asked from alongside him. “Don't tell me the Japs are here already?” he joked, turning on his stool. “Rick!” he said, getting to his feet with a huge smile on his face and slapping Rick on the back. “You're back!”

“And you're alive!” Charlie added, laughing with joy. “What happened to your arm? Did the bloody Japs get hold of you?”

“The Japs! No, I got my arm stuck under one of my croc traps,” Rick said.

“I hope there wasn't a croc in it at the time,” Monty said. “You don't want to end up like me.”

“There was, actually,” Rick said. “And she wasn't in a good mood.”

“You should just shoot the bastards,” Monty said angrily. He knew Rick wouldn't listen.

Apart from his arm being banged up, Charlie noticed Rick was out of breath and flushed. His clothes were also torn and his skin was scratched. “You look like you've crawled through a mile of thorny bushes,” he suggested.

“That's exactly what I've just done, but that doesn't matter now ... where's...”

“We thought you went to the city,” Rex interrupted. “Didn't you get there?”

“I did,” Rick said.

“Did you get caught in another bombing raid?” Charlie asked. He glanced towards the jetty and didn't see Rick's boat.

“No,” Rick replied. “There's not much left to bomb.”

“We thought the Japs might've shot you out of the water,” Rex said.

“I didn't see any Jap boats when I was at sea.”

“What about in Darwin? Was the place crawling with Japs?”

“I saw a few planes,” Rick said.

“You were bloody lucky by the sounds of it,” Monty said. “Do you want a beer?”

“No ... I'm looking for Lara,” Rick said. “Does anyone know where she is?”

“We haven't seen her for quite awhile,” Monty said.

Rick paled. “How long is quite a while? I was told she made it back here.”

“Who told you that?” Monty asked, curious.

“A fisherman. He saved my life earlier this morning but that's another story ... Lara did come home, didn't she?”

“Yes, she did,” Betty said as she came into the hotel. She'd overheard a good part of the conversation and glared at the men. “Why can't you tell someone the plain and simple truth? You're all so frustrating. Can't you see you've got this poor man thoroughly confused?”

“How did we do that?” Monty asked.

“Never mind,” Betty snapped. “You'll only confuse yourself thinking about it.” She looked at Rick. “Lara should be in the rectory,” she said.

“I was just there. The door was locked and I knocked, but there was no answer.”

“She's had the door locked all day, but she might be sleeping. I'll give you the spare key,” Betty said. “Come back to the store with me. You won't get any sense out of this lot.”

“Thank you,” Rick said, relieved.

“What did we do?” Monty mumbled indignantly to his companions.

“Buggered if I know,” Charlie said.

“Me, neither,” Jonno added.

“Don't take any notice of Betty,” Rex said. “She's got her hands full with Colin at the moment, as well as everything else. I don't think he's the same man since he came back from the city.”

“I have the feeling he'll come good when he hears Rick is alive,” Monty said.

When Rick got back to the rectory, he found the door open. Delighted, he went inside, excitedly calling Lara. There was no answer. He went from room to room; disappointed each time he found the room empty. He went outside again, and walked around the building, wondering where she could be. He even checked the schoolroom.

It was then he spotted Lara, a vision to behold, standing on the far end of the jetty. The setting sun in the background provided a magnificent backdrop of warm color against her blond hair and light dress. Lara was looking across the peaceful billabong, obviously miles away in thought. Rick walked towards the jetty, his gaze fixed on her. He couldn't believe he was actually looking at her after thinking he'd lost her forever. She was a miracle in his eyes and he felt so fortunate, so blessed, so grateful that she was in his life, and that she loved him as much as he loved her. He stepped onto the jetty and then slowly walked towards her, savoring every moment. When he was about twenty feet away he stopped.

Lara turned her head, as if sensing he was there. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears. She looked at him as if she daren't believe he was really there, as if she didn't trust what she was seeing was real because she wanted it so badly. “Rick,” she whispered.

Rick was unable to speak. He hurried towards her and encircled her in his arms, squeezing her tightly, as if he was afraid she'd disappear again. They were both crying joyously. Then he was kissing her, their salty tears mixing on their lips.

“You're alive,” Lara whispered over and over while he hugged her tightly again.

“I thought I'd lost you,” he said in a voice cracking with emotion. “I thought you were in one of the buildings in town when it was bombed,” he said, remembering the agony he'd suffered.

“No, my love, I'm here.” Lara kissed his face; silently thanking God for answering her prayers and bringing Rick back to her.

“I'm never letting you out of my sight again. Not ever,” Rick declared solemnly.

“I like the sound of that,” Lara said, laughing and crying at the same time.

“Will you be my wife, Lara?” Rick blurted out. “Will you marry me?”

Lara gaped at him in surprise. “You want to marry me?”

“I know I don't have much to offer. I don't have steady employment. I don't have a house. But I'd do anything you want. I'll sell the boat and buy a house if you want. I'll find another way to make a living ... just as long as we're together.”

“I don't need a house, Rick. I just need you by my side, forever. I'd live in a tent if it meant I was with you.”

Rick dropped on one knee and took her hands in his. “Then will you marry me, Lara? Will you be my wife and the mother of my children?” His cheeky smile returned. “And my fishing buddy?”

Lara smiled, looking into his glowing dark eyes. “Yes ... yes ... and no,” she said with a joyful laugh.

Rick stood up. “I'll take two out of three,” he said happily and kissed her again. He then picked her up and twirled her around, laughing with pure joy. A second later he groaned in pain.

“What's wrong?” Lara asked, looking at him worriedly.

“I've hurt my arm,” Rick said, holding it up.

Lara looked at the bruises and grazes and gasped. “You were hurt in the city,” she said, thinking the worst.

“No, I got my arm caught under the croc trap. Unfortunately there was a croc in the trap at the time.”

“Oh, Rick!” Lara's eyes widened at the thought of what could've happened. “How did you free yourself?”

“I couldn't. Luckily a fisherman came to my rescue. Actually, you know him. I believe he brought you back from Corroboree billabong with Jiana.”

“Ross Crosby!”

“Is that his name? I didn't ask. After he told me you were alive I couldn't get here quick enough. Unfortunately I ran out of gas a mile from here and had to walk through some rugged vegetation.”

“Ross had extra drums of fuel on his boat,” Lara said, noticing the scratches on his arms.

Rick shook his head in exasperation. “I wasn't thinking straight so I didn't consider my fuel situation. I'd been stuck on the side of the dingy with my arm trapped for nearly an hour when I heard the engine of a boat and called out for help. While Ross was looking for a branch to use as leverage to lift the trap, the very thing I feared most happened.”

“Another croc came along,” Lara said, imagining how terrified Rick must've been.

“Yes. Ross came back just in time to scare it away.”

“It's a wonder he didn't shoot it,” Lara said.

“He wanted to. He fired a shot near it, to frighten it back into the billabong. He wanted to shoot the croc in the trap, too, but I convinced him to let it live. He thought I was crazy. It was then he mentioned saving you from a croc. He thought it was strange that you'd been dismayed that he killed the croc about to attack you.”

“Once upon a time I wouldn't have thought about it, but since I met you I feel differently about killing crocodiles. I've come to respect them, but they're still quite terrifying.”

“I'm glad you feel that way,” Rick said smiling at her. Then his expression became serious. “I can't believe you fell asleep on the bank of the billabong.”

“I can't believe it, either. I was just so exhausted. I sat down to rest but I didn't intend to fall asleep. Jiana and I had walked from the Arnhem Highway.”

“You're here now, and I'm not going to let anything happen to my future wife.” He held her tightly again.