CHAPTER 13

 

NIGHT IN THE JUNGLE

 

Peter suddenly bent down to open his pack, calling to Roger as he did, “Quick Roger. Get your hutchie out.”

Roger did as he was told, quickly dropping his pack and opening it to extract the camouflaged plastic shelter the army cadets called a hoochy or hutchie. As Peter unrolled the nylon cords wrapped around his he said, “You others get yours out as well. Select some flat areas between two trees and put them up as quickly as you can.”

Willy, Stick and Marjorie all had ‘Shelters Individual’ and had been on bivouacs where they had put them up so knew what to do. They at once took off their packs and began taking them out. The navy cadets only had a small plastic tent, each one carrying part of it. They also set to work.

But Peter worked with what appeared to Willy to be frantic speed and had his tied up by its four corners to four trees within what seemed like seconds but was actually a bit over a minute. He tied it up so high he could stand underneath it. That done he dragged his pack and webbing underneath and called out, “Too late. Get your gear under here, quick, and get your water bottles out.”

Willy suddenly understood why they had been in such a hurry. He became conscious, by the sound and by the progressive darkening, that another shower of rain was coming. He lifted his pack under the shelter and then helped Marjorie with hers. By then the first spits were hitting the tree tops. Within a minute heavy drops were splatting on the plastic sheet. Peter held an open water bottle under the lowest point and a trickle began flowing into it.

As the rain got heavier the trickle became a gush and Peter soon had his water bottle full. Willy was ready and immediately replaced his with Marjorie’s. By then Roger had his shelter up as well and Carmen, Andrew and Tina crowded under it with him and also began refilling water bottles.

By the time the rain eased off half an hour later all of the water containers had been refilled, some of them twice, as Peter insisted they all drink their fill then refill the water bottles. Knowing that they now had enough water for the night greatly eased some of Willy’s apprehension but he was still very conscious that they were very much on their own. Even though it was only 2 kilometres to the nearest house on the map he understood it was very much more than that.

Once the rain had gone Peter instructed them to set up camp. He indicated suitable flat areas among the trees, ferns and vines. They were able to set up the shelters in a rough semi-circle. Willy shared with Stick, despite Marjorie’s wistful looks. He knew that she had promised her mother she would sleep with the girls and he was determined to help her keep it.  The three girls shared the small tent and Andrew joined Peter.

Following Peter’s guide they did not set up the shelters in a low ‘A’ shape but tied them higher up as a flat roof.

“In the jungle you don’t need it low,” Peter explained. “You need to be able to sit under it out of the rain so you can do cooking and so on.”

Roger agreed. “Captain Conkey also says that from a tactical point of view a flat hutchie is harder to see for an attacking enemy running though the jungle than a low one pegged down at the sides,” he added.

Willy had never thought about it, the Air Cadet instructors insisting they make them low and pegged down. He suspected that maybe they did that because that was how they were taught but that they did not really have much practical experience and so just always did it that way. He was starting to really admire Peter and grudgingly (but secretly) began to admire the army cadets methods.

‘They do know what they are about,’ he told himself.

Peter next instructed them to eat. They sat in a circle on their packs or groundsheets to cook. The army and air cadets all had small folding stoves that burnt hexamine. They heated their water and food in their mess tins over the flames. The navy cadets had a much larger spirit stove and a variety of metal bowls and plates.

As he spooned hot ‘Steak and Onions’ into his mouth Roger said, “I wonder if Graham and Steve got to their party on time?”

“Bugger their party!” Peter snapped.

Willy glanced at Peter and realized that he was really peeved that his friend had left them.

Carmen swallowed a mouthful and then said, “Graham’s normally really keen on hiking isn’t he?”

Even though she was looking at Peter it was Roger who answered. “Yes he is. It’s just that he’s got his mind on other things.”

“He’s in love,” Marjorie said.

“Love!” Stick snorted. “The way he was looking at that Betty broad I don’t think it was love that was on his mind!”

Carmen frowned at this. Tina spoke and said, “I think he is wasting his time. From the look of it Carol has realized he isn’t the man for her but hasn’t worked out how to tell him.”

“Never mind Graham’s love life. I hope he misses out,” Stick added.

“Stick! That’s not very nice,” Marjorie chided.

“Yeah well, if we have to get soaked and eaten by leeches in this bloody jungle then the least he could do is be here. It was his idea wasn’t it?”

Willy could not remember who had suggested the expedition but to change the subject he dug out the photocopied pages of the book in which he had read the account of the crash and asked Peter what the plan was the next morning. Peter gestured to the surrounding jungle. “We search the top end of the re-entrants, starting with the northern side. That’s where any wreck should be.”

“Do we split up?” Marjorie asked, slipping in to sit beside Willy as she did.

“No. Too risky,” Peter answered. “We can’t afford to have people lost.”

Andrew now asked the question that had been nagging at Willy. He said, “Why would any aircraft be flying so low if they knew there were mountains around?”

“Maybe they didn’t know there were mountains. I think there was cloud,” Peter replied.

Willy answered that after checking the printed account. “Yes there was.”

“Maybe they thought they were somewhere else, a navigational error?” Carmen suggested.

Stick scoffed, “Oh, fair go! They must have known where they were.”

“I wouldn’t bet on that,” Willy said. “I read that the ‘Liberator’ bomber that crashed during World War Two near Moonlight Creek over in the Gulf Country near Burketown was way off course. They had been bombing Japanese ships north of Buna in Papua New Guinea and were on their way back to a place called Iron Range up in the Cape. After the crash two of the crew, the captain and navigator I think, set out walking east believing they would soon come to the east coast of Cape York.”

Carmen was still incredulous. “But.. but to get to the Gulf Country near Burketown they must have flown right across Cape York Peninsula. How could they do that?”

Willy shrugged. “I read that they ran into bad storms and it might have been dark by then,” he said.

“But… but… but that is a thousand kilometres off course!” gasped Carmen.

Willy nodded. “That’s right.”

Stick snorted and said, “Oh, I don’t believe that! Nobody could be that bad.”

“Oh yes they could,” Peter said.

Roger nodded. “The navigator might have put his protractor sideways on the map and gone off at ninety degrees to the way he meant,” he said.

Peter gave a short laugh and Willy saw a sly grin spread across his face. “Just like someone I know did on a cadet navigation exercise you mean?” Peter said.

Roger went red. “Bite your bum!” he snapped.

“Sorry,” Peter said. “But that is a good theory Rog..”

Roger appeared mollified by this. Carmen now spoke. “They might have got their magnetic variation wrong too, added it when they meant to subtract or something like that.”

That made sense to Willy. He had done just enough navigation training to know that the magnetic compass did not line up with the grid lines on maps, or the lines of longitude on charts. He said, “The magnetic variation in this part of the world is about seven degrees East isn’t it?”

Peter answered: “Nearly eight now. Would have been seven then. It slowly changes. That is possible too.”

“Seven degrees isn’t enough to put a plane that far off course,” Roger objected.

“No, but it would be enough for a plane flying down the east coast of Cape York to think he was out over the sea when in fact he was over land. It would be more than enough to cause a crash into a mountain in cloud,” Peter said.

“Particularly if he added when he should have subtracted. That would give a fourteen degree error wouldn’t it?” Carmen suggested.

‘She’s a bright girl!’ Willy thought admiringly, trying to work out in his own mind what would have happened.

Peter gave the answer, further confirming Willy’s belief that Peter was the real ‘brains’ of the Hiking Team.  “That’s right. Let’s say they were flying south and the Grid Bearing was one hundred and fifty degrees. In that case the Magnetic Bearing should have been one fifty minus seven, which is one forty three degrees. That is using a magnetic variation east of north. If the navigator added instead he would have told the pilot to fly on one fifty seven. That would bring the plane on a converging course with the coast and then on over land.”

Tina looked horrified. “That’s an awful thought, that all those men could die just because someone made a mistake in their maths.”

“I think it happened a lot, in the age before GPS and computers,” Peter said.

“Even so, I think I will pay more attention to my mathematics at school,” Tina replied.

It was a sentiment that Willy agreed with. The idea of killing other people by making such a simple mistake appalled him.

More rain pattered and dripped, forcing them all to huddle in under their shelters. By then it was getting dark and Willy began to experience quite unfamiliar feelings of anxiety. The dark jungle seemed to wall him in and he felt very isolated. Marjorie snuggled closer and he put his arm around her and held her tight.

By 7:30pm it was fully dark. Stick suggested they light a fire but Roger vetoed that. “Not worth the effort,” he explained. “The wood is all wet and this rain forest wood is all so rotten it burns to ash in a few minutes. You’d spend more time out in the jungle looking for more.”

“It’s dark!” Andrew commented.

Peter chuckled. “Yes. It gets really dark in the jungle. You can’t see your hand in front of your face.”

Willy had heard this so now he tried it. To his surprise he found it was true. Even when held only centimetres from his eyes he could not see his hand!

Tina suddenly cried out. “Oh! What is that stuff that is glowing?”

Willy looked and noted a strange pattern of ghostly glow on the floor of the jungle. Stick turned his torch on and the glow instantly vanished. In the beam of the torch all Willy could see were dead leaves and sticks.

“Turn the torch off Stick,” Peter instructed. “It is only phosphorescence, natural luminous.”

Stick did as he was asked and as Willy’s eyes adjusted to the dark he again saw the faint glow. Peter and Roger both reached out and scooped up dead sticks which had the whitish luminosity on them and passed them around. Again Willy was amazed. There was more to come. A firefly flickered through the camp but they had no chance to catch it. Willy found the sight truly fascinating.

“There are even little luminous bugs,” Roger explained. “Once on a scout camp we caught a dozen of them and put them all in a bottle and you could read by it.”

Willy didn’t know if he believed that or not but Peter assured him it was true. “It’s how they attract their mates,” he explained.

At that Marjorie gave Willy a squeeze that got him all aroused and he wished they could get away somewhere private. But that was not to be. Roger suggested supper so stoves were dug out and lit and warm drinks were prepared: Milo, coffee and cocoa. Willy enjoyed a cup of hot Milo and was surprised to find he was getting cold.

Later in the night Willy was glad he had the sleeping bag Peter had insisted they all bring.  ‘I wish I had Marjorie with me to warm me up,’ he thought. But she had (reluctantly) rejoined the girls in their tent at 9:30 pm when it was voted they get to sleep so as to make an early start in the morning.

But Willy found it hard to sleep. He kept waking and staring at the blackness that enveloped the camp. All he could hear were the breathing of his friends and the drip of water. Occasionally some bush animal would scuttle, causing alarm. After being woken several times Peter got grumpy. “Listen, if it scuttles it is just a rat or something. You will hear a pig or cassowary long before it arrives.”

“What do we do if one does?” Stick asked, a noticeable quaver in his voice.

“Pull your head into your sleeping bag and go to sleep!” Peter replied sharply. Willy wasn’t sure if that was an order or the policy to adopt but found he had trouble staying calm. Not being able to see began to wear down his nerves. So did the thought of things crawling or slithering in out of the night. ‘Snakes and centipedes, for example,’ he thought anxiously. He found he was breathing hard and knew he was scared.

Sleeping in the open with no protective walls he found freaky but both Peter and Roger said it was the best way. “You can see what is coming and you can get out quickly if you need to,” Peter said.

“See!” Willy retorted sarcastically.

Peter’s response was to laugh. “Use your torch,” he replied. “Now go to sleep.”

All in all Willy did not enjoy his night in the jungle. Nor did most of the others, judging by the number of times they sat up or shone torches around or grumbled. It was with genuine relief that Willy checked his watch (For the fiftieth time) and saw it was 0500. From then on he lay awake, willing the daylight to hurry up and arrive.

Feeling distinctly washed out Willy got up and stretched as soon as it was light enough to see. He was not the only one awake. Andrew and Stick both sat up. Stick rubbed his eyes and said, “What a horrible night! I didn’t enjoy that.”

Andrew nodded. “Give me a ship anytime,” he added.

Peter stuck his head out of his sleeping bag and looked at his watch. “Go to sleep you mob!” he growled.

“Can’t. Anyway, it’s daylight,” Stick answered.

“Bloody hell!” Peter said, sitting up and stretching. “What a crew! I won’t take you lot camping again. You are a mob of scaredy cats.”

The girls woke up as well and joined in the discussion of all the things they had heard during the night. Marjorie crawled out of the tent in her pajamas and the sight made Willy shudder. Her hair had a ‘bird’s nest’ appearance and her face was all puffy, with dark rings under her eyes.

‘Dad said you need to see them first thing in the morning to help you decide if they are the one for you,’ Willy thought. Then he had a vivid image of Barbara and wished it was her, not Marjorie, who was his girlfriend. That was followed by almost instant guilt as Marjorie greeted him lovingly, much to the amusement of everyone else.

Marjorie’s response was to poke her tongue at them. “You are all just jealous,” she commented, drawing a chorus of laughing denials.

Peter next insisted they pack up their bedding. “And your tents,” he added.

“What if it rains?” Carmen queried.

Peter looked up. “It hasn’t rained for most of the night. There isn’t even any cloud. It will be alright.”

So they packed up and then sat on their packs to have breakfast. That cheered Willy a bit but he still felt tired and stiff. For breakfast he had a muesli bar, followed by a can of spaghetti and meatballs which he heated in a mess tin. These were washed down by coffee sweetened with condensed milk from a tube.

By 0630 they were ready to explore. Peter instructed them to leave their packs at the campsite. “No point in lugging them up and down the mountainside,” he said. “It will be hard enough as it is.”

He wasn’t wrong. From almost the first minute of searching it was sweaty work. Peter led them north, using his compass. This put them on another ridgeline. When they were a hundred metres down the slope he turned them left and explained how they were to search in ‘extended line’, side by side and ten metres apart.

“We will sweep right around the mountain at this level,” he explained. “Now make sure you can always see the person on either side of you. If the line breaks then call out and we will stop and reform.”

It was fine in theory, but in practice it was extremely difficult. Not only was the jungle very thick it was full of wait-a-while. As only Peter and Roger had secateurs the others had to make big detours to get around the masses of thorny tendrils. Worse still, once they got off the spine of the spur into the re-entrant, the slope became very steep. In places it was too steep to stand and the only way to progress was by moving from tree to tree. In doing so there were numerous slips and falls and a lot of sweaty grumbling.

Everyone got bruised and scratched by constant bumping into trees, vines and spiky bushes. Willy became hot and frustrated and several of the others began to complain and had obviously lost interest. Marjorie gamely kept going but was plainly unhappy. Stick was the most vociferous about how hard it was and within half an hour he was loudly grumbling that they were just wasting their time.

As he struggled slowly along Willy tried to imagine what it must have been like for the people in the plane. One moment they would have been just flying along. The next they would have been dead. ‘I wonder if they had a second’s warning?’ he thought, picturing the front of the plane suddenly smashing in. The image made him shudder at the horror and tragedy of it.

He had seen photos in the aircraft magazines of wrecks found in rainforest so he had some idea of what they were looking for. ‘There should be bits of mangled metal wrapped around trees and half buried in the leafmould,’ he told himself.

Stick had asked about what to look for and had suggested broken trees but Roger had said no, pointing out that any broken vegetation would have long since rotted and new growth taken its place. Despite this Willy had several moments of hope when he came across recently fallen trees. Then his rational mind dismissed the notion that a crashing plane from sixty years before might have caused it.

‘Obviously blown down in a recent storm,’ he thought, noting that the tangle of vines festooning the fallen tree were still green. Worse still fallen trees presented a formidable obstacle that took a lot of effort to detour around, particularly on such a steep slope.

It took over an hour to move just 300 metres. The searchers clawed their way up onto the next ridge, arriving in three straggling groups rather than in a line. As they came together Stick voiced his thoughts. “This is bloody hopeless. It will take weeks to search the whole top of this mountain,” he cried.

Willy wiped sweat from his face and mentally agreed. It was obvious to him that most of the others were quickly losing interest. Andrew shook his head and said, “This was only a rumour anyway wasn’t it?”

“Yes, it was,” Peter agreed.

“I am nearly out of water again,” Tina added.

That was the nub of the matter. Despite refilling their water bottles from the rain they had all used much of it during the night. Willy checked his own supply and noted he had only two bottles left and was feeling thirsty. Despite that he stubbornly wanted to continue the search around into the next re-entrant. To check he walk a few paces and looked down the slope.

One glance made his hopes slump. The slope looked even steeper, almost vertical, and it appeared to be just one huge tangle of wait-a-while. Peter joined him. “I don’t like the look of that,” he commented.

“Real ‘tiger country’,” added Roger.

Peter shook his head. “I think we had better be safe rather than sorry. Most of us are short of water so we had better give this up and start down. I don’t want to have to call the rescue helicopter on the mobile phone when someone has heat exhaustion,” he said.

Willy felt simultaneously relieved and disappointed. He was glad that Peter had taken the decision and agreed with him. None of the others disagreed and most even looked relieved. As there was no argument Peter turned and led the way up the spur. Even though they were only fifty metres below the top it still took ten sweaty minutes to make their way back to their camp site.

Once there Peter did not allow them time to linger. He just hoisted on his pack, ordered the others to do likewise, then set off down the spur they had come up. His only comment, after checking the time on his watch, was to say, “We had to start back by ten o’clock at the latest anyway.”

Willy glanced at his own watch and saw it was nearly 9:00. That made him feel better. ‘We are only losing about an hour of search time,’ he told himself. But as he trudged down the slope behind Roger he had the nagging suspicion that he would never be back and would spend the rest of his life wondering if there really was an aircraft wreck somewhere in the jungle up on the mountain.

The climb back down took nearly four hours, one longer than they had planned on. It was almost as hard as going up as they frequently lost the track they had cut on the way up and had to battle through the wait-a-while and vines nearly all the way. They all ran out of water and got very hot, sweaty and thirsty. Willy began worrying that one of them might get heat exhaustion.

Peter obviously had the same concern because he led them down off the spine of the spur and into the re-entrant to the north until they came to the headwaters of the creek. He made them all drink the creek water, over-ruling any objections about it not being safe. “There is no pollution upstream and it is clear and flowing,” he said, adding, “Besides, an upset stomach later is better than heat exhaustion now.”

Carmen strongly supported him so they all drank. Willy actually found the crystal clear water both cold and refreshing. He drank his fill and then filled two water bottles. Peter then led them back around to the ridge and on down.

Sweating heavily and feeling quite wrung out Willy stepped out of the jungle into the open track beside the cane field at 1:20pm. The group stood for a minute to get their breath and to drink before continuing to walk. Now they were out of the rainforest the sun struck down with vicious force, seeming to burn through clothing. Willy sweated even more.

Peter urged them to keep walking. Half an hour of plodding in the heat had them back at the big creek near the sugar mill. They crossed the bridge and trudged on around past the railway sidings to the park inside the ring road. At the old steam locomotive they dropped their packs, all with sighs of relief.

Roger pointed along the ‘main’ street. “I wonder if that shop there is open?” he said.

“A cold soft drink would be nice,” Carmen agreed.

It was at least 300 metres to the shop and both Stick and Marjorie grumbled it was “too far to walk on the off-chance that a shop might be open on a hot Sunday afternoon.”

“I’ll bring you a drink,” Willy answered. “What would you like?”

“A ‘pash’,” Marjorie answered.

That caused everyone to laugh and Willy to blush. Marjorie poked her tongue at them and said, “A ‘Passion fruit’ soft drink I meant!”

“Oh yeah?” Andrew teased.

Leaving Stick and Marjorie to mind the gear the others strolled across the park and then along the footpath. The street was lined with a mixture of ‘low-set ‘Old Queenslander’ houses set in their own gardens, and shops. Several shops and the hotel half way along the street had awnings or rooms which overhung the footpath.

From out of the front door of the shop near the hotel appeared two young girls. Willy immediately recognized them as Betty and her little sister. The two girls saw the group and at once turned and hurried towards them.

“Here comes Betty the Flirt,” Carmen murmured.

“She looks a bit upset,” Tina replied.

She did. As she reached them Willy saw that she was crying and that her face was very red. Peter called to her, “Hi Betty, have you seen Graham and Stephen?”

At that Betty’s face crumpled and more tears flooded out. “Yes.. Oh! Oh, boo hoo!” she sobbed. “It’s awful! They’ve both been taken away by the police.”

“By the police! Why?” cried Peter.