The Lace Balcony (16 page)

On Mungo's watch he spotted the outline of three black shadows on the far side of the river. These were no ghosts. They were natives, armed with spears. Then he saw that they were accompanied by a half-naked man whose skin was much lighter than theirs. This and his reddish hair clearly identified him as one of the escaped prisoners rumoured to have thrown in their lot with the blacks in the bush to learn how to live off the land and increase their chances of survival. After Mungo aroused Sandy from a deep sleep, he quietly briefed him of their presence. They remained on watch together throughout the night. At first light they breakfasted on water and dry biscuits rather than risk lighting a fire to make tea.

‘We need to get our bearings. No doubt, being a seasoned bushman, you can climb that tree?' Sandy said, with only a touch of sarcasm.

The tree in question was a giant pine, so tall its lowest branches were a hundred feet above the ground. Mungo gave it a casual glance. Vertigo flashed into his thoughts, but there was not much choice. ‘No sooner said than done, Sandy.'

He had seen Aborigines climb trees like this as effortlessly as he could walk on two legs, but he would need a bit of help. He tied one end of a rope around his waist, knotting the other loosely around the trunk of the pine. He manoeuvred himself upwards in a series of jerky stages, his feet braced against the trunk. Like a game of snakes and ladders, he sometimes lost the short distance he had gained, but pressed on until he reached his goal – the first branch strong enough to bear his weight.

‘Good lad, you've obviously done this many times,' Sandy said with pride. Mungo didn't have the heart to tell him it was the first time.

From his position in the ‘crow's nest' of the tree, he was rewarded with a panoramic view of the valley. In the middle distance were some two hundred natives, at a rough count, who covered a hillside like a dark blanket. On the near side of the river was a lone figure on horseback, the arrogant red-coated figure of Patrick Logan attempting to cross the river. As always he led the way, well in advance of his party.

Is Logan fearless – or just plumb crazy? But who am I to call any man crazy?

‘Can you see anything, Sean?'

‘Plenty.' Trying to fight off the waves of vertigo, Mungo described the scene to the now diminutive figure at the foot of the tree, who was clearly frustrated at having the scene relayed second hand.

Mungo was jolted in his precarious seat by what seemed like a sudden clap of thunder, but the sky was cloudless. He soon identified the cause. The blacks were rolling large stones down the path that Logan was attempting to take. Finally, he was forced to fall back to wait for his party to catch up with him. Mungo heard a warning shot fired by one of Logan's party, evidently designed to frighten off the natives. It had no effect. Not one of them moved. They continued to shout their warnings and shake their spears at the sky.

‘Logan's managed to cross the river. The blacks keep yelling at him, “Commidy Water”. Can you hear them?'

‘Aye, but what the devil does it mean?'

‘I don't know. Maybe Commidy is their way of trying to pronounce Commandant. Whatever, it seems clear they're warning Logan to back off. Go back across the water – to where he came from.'

Mungo felt annoyed by Logan's blind determination to proceed. ‘The blacks are disappearing into the bush but I suspect they're following him at a distance. Logan won't even know they're there.'

He described point by point how Logan's party reached the river, exchanged signals with their captain and proceeded in a different direction.

‘I can't be sure but it seems Logan has ordered them to join him later at Limestone Station – that's the general direction they're headed. What do
we
do now?'

Sandy was adamant. ‘It's Logan's expedition. I have no orders to the contrary, so we will continue to base our camp here and unlikely as it is, search for any other traces of the Basaltic formations he believes he will find at Mount Irwin.'

After a bout of coughing that left him depleted, Sandy added under his breath. ‘Let's hope Logan finds his missing horse. Then we can pack up and return to Moreton Bay. I could do with a hot bath.'

Mungo kept his thoughts to himself.
In that case let's hope Logan
doesn't
find it! I'd rather take my chances out here in the bush than back at Moreton Bay.

Relieved to be back on
terra firma
, Mungo lit a small campfire and boiled the billy for tea. The chance sighting of a gloriously patterned butterfly left them both speechless.

‘Catch one of those beauties and you might well earn your freedom, Sean,' Sandy said with a straight face. He added, ‘I canna face another tin of salted beef but as much as I admire barramundi you're not to risk fishing in case you're spotted by the blacks.'

Mungo rose and patted the sheaf knife at his belt. ‘Leave it to me. I'll come up with something.' He turned and looked back at the Scotsman whose breathing was laboured. ‘How do you know I won't make a bolt for it?'

‘Because you're nae a fool,' Sandy said easily. ‘Why risk your chance to be set free?'

Mungo strode off, his usual sense of freedom at being alone in the bush shadowed by a sense of dark foreboding.

•  •  •

Time had ceased to exist. All sense of distance had evaporated. He was swallowed up by the luminous wet vines and branches of the rainforest jungle, so thick he was unable to glimpse more than splintered ribbons of sunlight though the dense canopy of the forest, the silence broken only by his staggering footsteps and flocks of brilliantly coloured parrots screeching in flight. And the occasional snake, hanging from a tree, uncoiling itself to several times longer than his height to drape like a vine, its bright red eyes watching him, ready to strike if he threatened it.

Mungo pushed doggedly through the undergrowth, lost in time and space and only dimly aware that somewhere within its timeless womb he had lost his identity. There was no door to his past or future, his memories wiped clean as if he had just been born – or had died. Dumb with fear that seemed to fill his whole frame, he could smell the scent of death around him. Not simply lost in the bush, he was lost to the world. Abandoned by memories too dark to revisit, his mind and emotions were whittled down to one primitive instinct – survival.

Hunger gnawed at his gut. Unable to eat anything but berries that beckoned him with their unknown promise of sustenance or poison, he dripped water into his mouth from the waxy cups of leaves. Unable
to sleep, instinct telling him that to lie down in this jungle would be to dig his own grave.

Grave.
He shuddered at the forbidden images in his mind and used his knife to slash back the jungle and desperately forge a new track in a final attempt to contact human life – or be drowned in oblivion. Lost beyond recall.

Even his ghosts would not find him.

•  •  •

Mungo was conscious of a face peering down at him as he lay sprawled in the undergrowth. He dimly made out the features. A black man's face. He was holding a spear in his hand, but his deep-set eyes were curious rather than threatening.

Mungo found himself hoisted to his feet, his arm looped around the naked black shoulder as he half stumbled and was half dragged into a clearing, the bank of a river flooded with sunlight that hurt his eyes.

He saw the black arm pointed at the other side of the river, and before he could dredge a word of thanks from his parched throat, the dark shadow had disappeared into the bush.

Mungo saw a thin thread of smoke from a campfire and crawled towards it.

I'm going to live.
Then all was dark oblivion.

•  •  •

He awoke to find himself lying on a soft surface under a mosquito net, the smell of hot soup being offered to him in a pannikin. A familiar face bent over him, the eyes wrinkled with concern.

‘Sandy? Is that you?'

‘Aye. I'm relieved to see you've decided to rejoin the human race.'

‘I didn't bolt. Just got lost for a few hours – but I always knew where I was,' he lied.

‘A few hours and the rest! You were missing for two days. You've just slept around the clock. I knocked you out with a sleeping potion – so I could treat your wounds.'

Mungo nodded dumbly and ate everything placed before him. He was ravenous and didn't want to waste words trying to describe the lost hours.

‘Where's my shirt?' He asked, realising he was wearing one that belonged to the doctor, too small to fasten.

‘It was covered in blood, Sean. You were a right mess when you staggered in, clutching your knife as if ready to defend yourself. Where have you been?'

Mungo flinched, unable to form the words. He was saved from answering by the sound of a horse galloping towards them, its rider wearing a red coat. An exhausted young soldier dismounted and delivered a garbled message sent by Logan's servant.

‘Collison's orders are to join the search party. Captain Logan's gone missing.'

Sandy sprang to his feet. ‘What? When did this happen?'

‘He hasn't been sighted since he crossed the river and rode off alone in the direction of Mount Irwin. Later his party thought they heard him cry ‘Coo-ee'. Several times they called Coo-
ee
in response. They fired several shots during the night. Next day they followed the tracks made by Logan's horse. Sixty or more blacks shouted at them, armed with spears, shields and waddies, but no shots were fired.'

The corporal gratefully downed a pannikin of water, followed by a noggin of whisky, then continued.

‘It's all confused. Some of his party returned to Limestone Station expecting to find him there, as arranged. No sign of him. I joined another search party. Miles away we found the Captain's saddle lying near the remains of a fire. The stirrup leathers were cut asunder, the stirrup irons gone.'

Mungo exchanged a startled glance with Sandy, reminded of his story of Stimson's ghost touching the stirrups of Logan's horse.

The young soldier tried to resume an air of command. ‘We need every man available, Doctor.'

‘Aye, we'll join in the search immediately.'

Mungo wasted no time in breaking camp, driven by a second reserve of energy. His silent glance at Sandy told him they were of like minds.
Are we searching for Logan – or his corpse?

•  •  •

Mungo rode at Sandy's side. The search party, headed by Surgeon Cowper, led them into the clearing. Native grasses had been eaten
away in a circle where a horse had been tethered. Roasted chestnuts lay in the embers of a fire in the stump of a tree. The leaves of Logan's notebook were scattered by the wind.

The saddle had been found elsewhere. Signs of hoof prints and footprints indicated he had leapt bareback on his horse to make his escape. There was a heavy silence when a soldier discovered Logan's bloodstained waistcoat.

Mungo was some distance away when Cowper discovered the dead horse. Half submerged in the mud of a creek, its carcass was covered by tree branches. The smell of rotting horseflesh was overpowering at close range. A broken spear lay on the opposite bank.

Mungo was conscious of guttural cries of grief and anger around him but he froze at the discovery of Logan's body. It lay face down in a shallow grave, the back of the head pulverized as if by a native waddy. From the stench of the corpse and the tropical heat it was obvious Logan had been murdered days earlier.

Cowper briefly examined the body. Sandy's face was taut and grey as he watched the soldiers wrap their brother officer's naked body in a blanket and carried it away on horseback.

Mungo could offer no genuine words of sympathy so he rode in silence by Sandy's side.

On their return to Moreton Bay the night air was rent with the jubilant cries of prisoners who sang and chanted as if drunk on revenge. Bets were taken as to whether Logan was murdered by blacks or bolters.

All Sandy said was, ‘I dinna believe his murderer will ever be brought to trial.'

Mungo refrained from adding his voice to the mob's, mindful that Logan's widow was Sandy's kin. He consoled himself with the ironic thought:
Clunie can hardly shoot the whole six hundred of us for celebrating the death of a tyrant.

•  •  •

Standing on the wharf, once more shackled by leg irons, Mungo watched the coffin bearing Logan's body carried on board the government schooner
Isabella.
Despite the state of her husband's body making immediate burial advisable, Mrs Logan refused to have him buried at Moreton Bay and insisted on accompanying his body to
Sydney. Sandy Gordon stood beside Mungo, dressed in a dark suit, the first time Mungo had seen him in formal attire.

‘It is my duty to stand by my kin, Sean. I must see that Patrick Logan's funeral is conducted with full military honours in Sydney Town. And that Governor Darling officially acknowledges his achievements,' he added, ‘as an explorer.'

Mungo made no response.

Sandy continued, ‘That's the only hope my cousin has to receive a widow's pension to help raise her bairns. The damned British government's policy is to deny pensions to officers who have had the bad luck to die during Colonial service. The only hope Letitia has is if Governor Darling recommends to Lord Bathurst in London the granting of a pension.'

They looked across at the small windblown figure of Robert Abraham Logan, as formal as a seven-year-old soldier, as he helped his mother on board. Mrs Logan's face was covered by a widow's veil as she carried the toddler who bore her name, held tightly against her breast as if the child was a shield. When she stumbled on the gangplank, the boy instantly steadied her.

‘Young Robert has all the bearings of a soldier. He adored his father.'