Twenty minutes later Roger was groaning audibly as he hoisted on his pack. The cadets made their way out onto the road and continued their trek. Roger felt the strain right from the start. His muscles ached. He was chafed and tired; and he was worried the others could smell his wet uniform.
Graham, as usual, set off at a cracking pace. Roger had to force himself to stride it out to keep up. Soon he was sweating freely and hating every step. He was also starting to develop a real loathing for the rainforest. The road was damp underfoot and that made walking harder as mud stuck to his boots. The jungle met overhead and induced that claustrophobic feeling of walking in a never-ending tunnel of gloom. The rainforest on the right had never been cleared and had almost no undergrowth. It appeared to be just a mass of trees with black trunks which gave the impression of all being the same height and thickness. Even the rotting deadfall was black.
“There’s a car coming,” Stephen called.
“Will we hide?” Roger gasped in alarm.
“Don’t be silly Roger. You’ve got those crooks on the brain,” Stephen retorted.
“Besides, it could be the police looking for us,” Peter added.
The boys all moved over to the right hand side of the road. A car came into view behind them, an old station wagon. It drove slowly because the road was badly potholed. As it drew level Roger turned to look. There was an elderly couple in it and the old lady gave a cheerful smile.
“Good on you boys!” she called.
Stephen waved. The car drove on out of sight, leaving Roger feeling slightly foolish. The boys marched on.
Soon Roger settled into the rhythm of marching. As his muscles warmed up the soreness went away. Only the chafing at hips and shoulders still intruded noticeably. After about twenty minutes Roger heard Graham call out. He looked up. Bright sunlight showed a few hundred paces ahead.
“That’s the last of rainforest,” Peter said.
“Thank God. I’m sick of the stuff,” Stephen said feelingly.
Roger was puffing too much to say anything but could only agree. The damp from his perspiration had inflamed his stinging tree bite and he couldn’t resist scratching at it.
They came out onto a bitumen road with open pasture on the left and rainforest on the right. Roger’s spirits lifted and he stared out over the rolling hills, his eyes almost aching with relief at being able to focus at more than fifty paces.
After a few minutes they passed a grassy car park. A family with a van were there. A sign said:
CATHEDRAL FIG
“Is that the Curtain Fig?” Peter asked.
“No. Don’t think so. Wrong name,” Graham replied.
“We’d better check. We’ll look silly if we walk all the way to Yungaburra if the next clue is here,” Peter cautioned.
“Good idea,” Roger said, coming to a standstill.
“No Roger, you keep going. I’ll go and check and catch you up,” Graham replied.
Roger groaned but began walking again. Without Graham leading they slowed down to a nice steady plod. Roger kept looking behind and saw Graham reappear in the distance and set off after them.
A small tourist bus rattled past, forcing them into the long grass beside the road. Graham gradually overhauled them. He caught up as they came to a road junction and farm.
“Nothing there,” he reported. “This is the farm we rang up at,” he added.
The friends stood in a perspiring group while they discussed this. Peter pointed along the dirt road which led off east across the open country. “This is the road we came along on Senior Ex last year,” he said.
Graham nodded. “We walked from Gordonvale along the Mulgrave and then up Robsons Track. That was a great exercise.” The three older boys then exchanged reminiscences about that exercise, leaving Roger feeling quite left out. For once he was glad when they started marching again.
The road curved around the farm buildings and southwards away from the jungle. It went down to a small bridge and then wound its way over open farmland. It looked very pretty to Roger.
Within ten minutes he had lost interest in the scenery as he plodded up a kilometre long slope. Several times cars rushed past, forcing them to step into the long grass. There seemed to be no breeze and there was no shade. Roger began to wish they would pass through some rainforest.
The road curved and dipped down a long slope to a narrow bridge. Roger struggled to keep up. He wished Graham would slow down but he didn’t dare suggest this. A glance at his watch showed it was 1:30. They had been marching for nearly 50 minutes. ‘Perhaps Graham will go by the book and give us the ten minutes in the hour to rest?’ he wondered hopefully.
No such luck. Up another long hill. Into the sunflowers to avoid a shiny blue car driven at high speed by a young man with a black moustache. ‘Trying to impress his girlfriend!’ Roger thought resentfully. Another narrow bridge and a wait for another car to rush across, also far too fast for safety. Bloody tourists! Up a slope through more open fields, some brown and poorly maintained, others green and dotted with black and white dairy cows. Down to yet another narrow bridge. Past a farm with magnificent flower gardens bordering the road. Past a derelict barn on the right.
A swarm of tiny finches flashed across the road at their approach. A car came from behind. Why do they all drive so fast? Uphill past a row of pine trees which threw a little shade. Another farm and dogs barking. By this time Roger was just marching mechanically. His legs and feet seemed numb and his hips and shoulders just a general misery. Sweat poured out of him. He began to fall behind and had to battle with himself not to call out asking for a rest.
The road just seemed to wind uphill between walls of headhigh grass until it reached the crest of a long ridge. Here it passed to the right of a low hill and out to the right there were glimpses of half the Atherton Tablelands.
Suddenly they stopped. Roger came to a standstill and blinked sweat from his eyes. Graham was dropping his pack!
“OK. Ten minutes. This is the junction with the Gillies Highway,” Graham said.
Roger looked around. He was astonished they - he - had walked so far. It was just on two O’clock.
“How far have we come?” he asked.
“A bit over seven Ks,” Graham replied with a grin. “That’s good going for an hour and a half.”
Roger dropped his pack and webbing and felt as though he would float away. He flexed his arms and rubbed his sore shoulders. A slight breeze sent a pleasant cooling sensation down his sweat soaked back. He sat on his pack and had a long drink.
At that moment a car, a white sedan, arrived at high speed from along the highway and pulled up with a scatter of loose bitumen. Two men in it peered out, the closest one pointing to the road sign with his left hand and waving a map in the driver’s face with his right.
Roger looked up out of curiosity and felt a thrill of fear run through him. Both men were dressed in black!
The pointing man suddenly saw the cadets sitting beside the road. His face went hard and he clenched his teeth. He turned to look at them. Then he and the driver exchanged words and bent to the map. Roger couldn’t help staring. The nearest man was in his forties with big shoulders, a large squarish head and a roll of fat on the back of his neck.
The car suddenly leapt into motion and sped off down the Danbulla Road. Roger pulled out his notebook and began to write.
“What you doing Roger?” Peter asked.
“Writing down that car’s make and number.”
“Whatever for?”
“Didn’t you see? Those men were both dressed in black.”
“Oh come off it Roger!” Graham snorted. “You’ve got Iron Claws on the brain. Give it a rest. The cops have arrested the murderers.”
To Roger’s surprise Stephen spoke up. “I think Roger’s right. The Inspector did warn us about strangers, and he did say the KSS used to be organized in groups of nine.”
Graham had no answer to this. Instead he looked sulky, then took out his water bottle and had a drink. Then he hoisted on his webbing. “Let’s keep moving before our muscles stiffen up,” he said.
Roger just wanted to lie down but he made the effort to stand up. “Ouch! Too late. I’m stiff already,” he groaned. All his muscles seemed to be tense, like hard rubber. With an effort that made him groan he swung on his webbing and pack.
Graham was already on the move. He began striding down the right hand side of the two lane highway. At least it was downhill for a half a kilometre but Roger could see the road went up over another long, open hill. Once again it took a few minutes for the stiffness to ease out of his aching muscles. By then they were at the bottom of the slope and all their muscles had to painfully ‘change gears’ to begin the upward slog.
It wasn’t very pleasant. Cars and trucks raced past at high speed, often too close for comfort. Some vehicles tooted their horn and people in a few yelled derisory taunts and obscenities which made Roger feel very self-conscious and embarrassed.
As they plodded up the slope the four strung out until Roger was a good two hundred paces behind Graham but only fifty behind Stephen. He kept grimly on, trying to think of something nice, rather than of his chafing and sore knees.
What his mind kept returning to were the events of the last two days. Try as he might, he could not shake the horrifying visions of the sodden corpse, or of the men in black lurking in the jungle.
The cadets reached the crest of the ridge. A secondary road lead off on the right. The highway curved left along the crest. Away down to the right sunlight glinted on an arm of Lake Tinaroo. Beyond it was the dark jungle covered mass of Python Ridge where they had spent the night. Beyond it was the mass of the Lamb Range where he had endured his terrifying airship ride. He looked away. ‘I’ve had enough of this place for a while,’ he thought.
Instead he looked left to where, twenty kilometres away, Mt Bartle-Frere, Queensland’s highest mountain, heaved its jungle covered bulk above the rolling pastures to cover half the distant horizon. That got his mind going back to the January a year and a half before when he and the others had spent two weeks searching the jungle there for a gold mine. That had culminated in them being rescued from the rain sodden jungle by helicopter.
‘I must have rocks in the head to keep coming on expeditions with this lot,’ he mused, remembering the fear he had felt as the cyclone had lashed their jungle camp.
As they got closer to a belt of trees ahead they developed into a wall of solid jungle. Roger pulled out his map to confirm his memory. Yes. It was the patch of jungle around Lake Barrine. The boys passed a farmhouse. A gravel road went off on the left. They passed another farm house and then the jungle was right beside them on the left. Traffic whizzed past. Roger felt he was in a sort of nightmare.
As they passed the turnoff to Lake Barrine Graham stopped and waited for the others to catch up. “Anyone want to go to the shop?” he asked.
“Where?” Peter asked.
“At the kiosk down at the Lake.”
“Fair go!” Stephen replied. “That’s a couple of hundred metres, and downhill all the way - which means uphill coming back. It will add half a kilometre to the walk.”
Roger said nothing. He just stood bent over to ease the weight of his pack, while trying to recover his breath.
“You go if you like,” Peter said. “Leave your pack and I’ll wait here.”
“OK. Do you want anything? Steve? Roger?” Graham asked as he dropped his pack.
“No thanks,” Stephen replied. “I’ll keep walking. This is ridiculous. You keep talking about doing this hike but you are forever stopping for every silly little reason.”
“It’s OK. I’ll catch up,” Graham replied. “Anyway, it’s nearly time for another rest.”
“How far have we come from the Danbulla turnoff?” Stephen asked.
“About four Ks,” Graham replied. “Do you want anything?”
“Get me a softdrink,” Peter said.
“Roger?”
“Yes please,” Roger replied. He was debating dropping his pack or sitting down but knew that was weakness. He dug out some money and passed it to Graham. “I’ll just keep going.”
It took an effort to make that first step but he pushed himself. Stephen started walking too, following a few steps behind. Roger didn’t look back. He just put his head down and gripped his pack straps with both hands to ease the weight.
The main road ran through jungle with a mowed verge a few metres wide. The traffic raced past. Roger found it most unpleasant. As he plodded along he saw the back half of a large brown snake slide into the weeds just ahead of him but he did not change his pace. Some instinct told him it wasn’t going to attack and he was too tired to get excited. He just warned Stephen. The snake slid along near them for half a minute before vanishing into the weeds.
As the road curved slowly left they came into an area of shade which went on for over a kilometre. Roger just plodded on, feeling more like a zombie every minute. He was just coming to open country again when Peter and Graham caught them up.
Graham called, “Pull up you two and have a drink. It’s time for a break,” He was grinning and striding along as though he didn’t have a care in the world. That nettled Roger and he shook his head in annoyance. He looked at his watch; nearly twenty past three.
“How much further to go?” he asked, taking the cold can of softdrink from Graham. He opened it and poured it down his throat. “Aaah! That’s good!”
Graham consulted his map. “About seven Ks I reckon. Another hour and a half.”
‘Seven Ks,’ Roger thought. His gloom must have showed on his face.
Stephen clapped him on the shoulder. “Cheer up Roger. We’ve walked about fourteen since lunchtime. You are going well,” he said.
This unexpected statement made Roger look at Stephen. He didn’t know what to say and wasn’t sure if Stephen was giving him a compliment or teasing him. In reply he gave a weak smile and nodded, then quaffed some more softdrink before holding the can out.
“This is good. Want some Steve?”
“Thanks. Yes.” Stephen took the can and drank a mouthful, then handed it back. Roger drained the last few drops and felt a pleasant glow inside.
After a few minutes they set off again, the empty cans crushed and placed in basic pouches. It was a long downhill slope through open farmland for the next kilometre. As they trudged along Roger looked out over the rolling country. On the next rise was another dark belt of rainforest, the Lake Eacham National Park. In the middle distance the bulk of Mt Quincan, and the Seven Sisters, a line of ancient volcanic scoria cones, stood in a line across their front. In the far distance a low lava dome topped by a microwave tower marked the site of Atherton, largest town on the Tablelands. Beyond it, barring the western horizon, was a line of jumbled and rugged mountains, the Herberton Range.
‘One of them is Mt Baldy,’ Roger thought. He could not identify exactly which mountain peak it was but it cheered him up to be walking directly towards it as he was sure that was the end of the hike.
Near the bottom of the hill Roger remembered his packet of jelly beans. He put a hand into his damp pocket and fumbled around until he extracted two. They were all sticky but he didn’t care. He glanced at them. ‘Just my luck - two black ones!’
Then it was uphill for nearly a kilometre. They were now marching straight into the afternoon sun and the stench of diesel fumes from several big trucks made him feel a bit queasy.
At length they reached the road junction on the crest and got glimpses of sunlight glittering on water off to their right. It was another arm of Lake Tinaroo. The boys halted for a minute for a drink.
“We’ve come a fair way,” Peter said, indicating the lake. They all looked out and in the middle distance to the north was the dark mass of Python Ridge and beyond it, blue with distance, the mass of the Lamb Range. They couldn’t see the actual town or dam at Tinaroo but could work out where it was. Roger was amazed at how far it did look and felt a sudden surge of accomplishment.
“Let’s go,” Graham said. “Still five or six kilometres to go and it’s nearly four O’clock.”
Roger lumbered into painful motion. Now he didn’t care how much it hurt. ‘I’m going to walk this if it kills me!’ he told himself.