There was no water west. No water in 200 miles, just scrub. ‘The water must be somewhere,’ I said to Alec, when we arrived back at Boundary Dam. ‘Surely scrub needs some to survive.’

He regarded me. ‘Perhaps there is water, but it will do us no good if we can’t find it.’

Mr Giles said ‘Hooshta’ to Pearl and he sunk to the ground. When Mr Giles inspected the dam, he called us over. ‘Look at this.’ He was frowning. While we were away the water level had dropped an inch a day.

He made a snap decision. ‘We will return by a more southerly route and see if water lies that way.’

Alec and I glanced at each other. By going south we would not come across the water Padar left on the other track, but we didn’t argue.

In the south was a plain. It was so cold in the night – only 26 degrees – that my legs ached. At least it was 94 degrees in the day. The plain was a change for the camels to travel over, no stones and no trees. Mr Giles said a bicycle could be ridden over it. By looking at his maps he thought it must be 600 miles long and 200 miles broad. I wished I was so clever.

We didn’t find any waterholes on the 200 miles back to the depot either. It was a good thing we were carrying water. The next worry was whether the rest of the party was still at the depot. If the water had run out there the men would have returned to Youldeh, and we didn’t have enough water to travel that far.

As we came over the last sandhill to Ooldabinna we searched the ground ahead for canvas. ‘I see them,’ I shouted, ‘the tents are still there.’

It was the twenty-second day of August; we had been away eighteen days and we were as glad to see the others as they us. Padar hugged me, and I clung to him, shocked to find I was about to cry. Mr Giles said, ‘So Saleh, you didn’t get eaten in the scrub, I see.’

Padar chose to smile and I pretended to blink my eyes free of dust.

There was only a bucket or two of slush left in the wells to give our four camels a drink. Mustara nudged me looking for more, and I kissed him in sympathy.

That night it rained. It was as if God was rewarding us after a hard time in the desert. We raced to catch the water running off the tents. I stubbed my toe in the dark but it was a small thing compared with catching water.

Mr Giles broke into poetry again. ‘I am thankful to heaven for paying part of a longstanding debt, but it owes me more showers yet.’

We slept little and spent the time watching the rain and checking it was running into the canvas troughs and into the wells.

By breakfast time the rain had stopped. Mr Tietkens told of their search for a depot in the north. ‘We found a native well but it only had a bucketful of water.’ He looked pointedly at Mr Giles as he said this. Mr Giles just raised his eyebrows and smiled. Rain always put him in a good humour.

‘We came across some natives camped in a valley and wanted to ask them where water was, but the people were so frightened they ran off, making loud cries. We followed the valley northwards for six miles but couldn’t find the water supply.’

Jess Young cut in: ‘It was there that those natives who had been so shy came howling after us making a dreadful racket. They had war paint on, and brandished spears, so they meant mischief. They even fired the grass on either side of us. I was sure they were going to kill us.’ He glared at Tommy but Tommy grinned as though he’d never heard of a spear before.

Mr Tietkens took up the story. ‘We managed to get away without having an encounter although we fired two shots. We even tried again to talk to the natives but to no avail.’

The officers hadn’t sighted the Musgrave Ranges and since they could see no sign of water they had returned by a different route.

‘Perhaps you could have found water if given more time,’ Mr Giles said.

There was a silence. Was Mr Giles saying they hadn’t tried hard enough? Mr Tietkens chose not to take offence. ‘I am sure the area is watered by native wells,’ he said in an even tone.

We were all quiet after Mr Giles had told our story as well. If people lived in the area there must be water. But where?

What if there was no water left at the dam we had found, if it had evaporated? At least we would have enough with us to reach there, but what then? I found myself praying like Alec, in my head, without taking my prayer mat out.

We left Ooldabinna on the twenty-fourth day of August. Wild Gazelle, the pack cow we had taken west, and Malik were listless after the long trek with little water. ‘Watch them for fatigue,’ Padar said. ‘If they can’t keep up we will have to stop the string to put them at the end.’

The string was now divided into three. Behind Padar on Roshni were the three bulls – Malik, Rajah and Asif – loaded with water casks of thirty gallons. They crashed and smashed through the undergrowth and made a pathway for the others. After the first six camels there was a break and one of the party rode ahead of the next six. The steersman with the compass rode and guided the whole string but if the scrub was too thick the steersman walked. Mr Giles had taught three of the men to steer with the compass: Mr Teitkens, Jess Young and Alec. They took an hour each.

‘Steering is difficult,’ Alec said when he had finished his turn and rode at the back with me for a rest. It was easier there for we had an open path to ride in. ‘In the front the scrub is so thick and so high you can’t see a man on a camel. It’s agony, Taj.’ Alec rubbed his legs where the undergrowth had whipped them.

Mustara’s legs were as shiny as Jess Young’s boots were in Port Augusta. It’s good that camels’ skin is so thick, for horses’ legs would have bled in that scrub. I couldn’t help thinking of the extremes in exploring: if it wasn’t desert it was dense scrub, and neither had water.

On the way we picked up the water casks that Padar had left. That was when Padar and I noticed Khushi was growing bigger. Padar examined her middle. ‘Will she calve soon, Padar?’

He nodded. We spoke comforting words to her, for calving on the march in the desert was not the same as calving at Beltana where a calf can take its time to stand on its feet.

We made camp in the scrub further on. There was no water, but there were clouds. ‘Inshallah, God willing, rain tonight,’ Padar said.

‘I damn well hope so,’ Jess Young said, overhearing. ‘This heat is oppressive.’ I stared at him – oppressive? It wasn’t even summer.

Mr Giles tried to make light of the lack of water with an announcement. ‘Tonight it’s Mr Tietkens’ birthday. He is thirty-one years old.’

Peter made a birthday cake but it tasted like damper to me. Perhaps it wasn’t as soggy as usual. Jess Young brought his concertina to the campfire and I fetched my tabla while Peter brought a bottle of the brandy and poured some into the men’s tin mugs. Padar shook his head and Peter passed him by.

First we sang ‘Happy Birthday’. It was the same song they sang for Mr Giles six weeks ago and I joined in. This seemed to be the order for birthdays: a special song, a damper cake and presents, though the men apologised for not having any real gifts to give. Then they sang other songs, one called ‘Foggy Foggy Dew’ and a Cornish one for Peter called ‘Tavern in the Town’.

When Jess Young was tired of playing he asked Mr Tietkens for a speech. ‘Tell us about yourself, old chap.’

Mr Tietkens seemed shy of the attention, but he cleared his throat. This must be a custom that has to be borne. I wondered what I would say if I was asked. ‘My father died when I was young so I went to the Blue Coat School in London, as Mr Giles did some years before.’ Jess Young pretended to yawn which Mr Tietkens ignored. ‘When I was fifteen, my mother decided I should go to Australia to find my fortune.’

‘I say, that’s a bit rough. On your own?’ Jess Young was interested now.

Mr Tietkens hesitated and Mr Giles took up the tale. ‘He came with an actor, a Mr Woods, who took all his money.’

‘More than once,’ Mr Tietkens added.

‘Then William ended up on the goldfields doing odd jobs.’

Mr Tietkens chuckled. ‘Once I was pushing a baby in a carriage for a bookseller. One day my lunch was wrapped in two pages of Byron’s “Hebrew Melodies”. I begged for the rest and learnt them by heart. I lost that job with the bookseller by tipping the baby into a puddle.’ Everyone laughed. ‘Not on purpose, you understand.’ Jess Young pretended to disagree and there was laughter again. ‘Then I became a greengrocer’s boy.’

What a difficult beginning, I thought, and look at Mr Tietkens now, second-in-command on an expedition. It was as if Mr Giles read my thoughts. ‘I found William selling tickets for the St Kilda railway station and I persuaded him to come up the Darling with me. That was ten years ago.’

‘I remember the first night of camping out – the voices of the night, the curlew, the shriek of the night hawk.’ Mr Tietkens fell quiet and I remembered my first night on the Camel Road to Port Augusta. Was it four months ago? It felt like forever.

‘And two years ago on William’s birthday we had duck for dinner and named a creek after him,’ Mr Giles said, ‘Tietken’s Birthday Creek.’

‘That was a wonderful place except for the natives attacking us.’

I couldn’t help myself. ‘What did you do?’

‘We fired,’ Mr Giles said, ‘but no one was killed.’

Jess Young’s hand reached to touch his gun. Mr Giles had not set a regular watch at night. Only at waterholes did the men stay awake in turns.

Padar and I were very tired in the morning for during the night Khushi calved. It was a difficult birth. She stood and knelt and stood again even when the calf’s legs were poking out. She groaned too. Usually the cows lie on their side and make little noise when calving. Unfortunately Khushi strained herself in her hip and in the morning she couldn’t rise from the ground. It was raining as well and the other men were catching water in the tarpaulins.

‘I hope it’s also raining at this dam we’re heading for,’ I heard Jess Young say.

Mr Giles ignored Jess Young. ‘We’ll stay here today.’ It was not only due to the rain but to Khushi. He was as worried about her as Padar and I were. I milked her while she lay down and we gave her water, but she was in great pain. Padar stood watching her, his hands behind his back.

‘The calf will not be surviving if Khushi cannot look after it,’ he murmured.

‘I hope it can stand,’ I said, but it didn’t even try. Perhaps it was because of the long birth. I watched Khushi struggle for she knew what she should do, but each time she tried to rise to reach her calf she sank back with a groan. It wasn’t like this when Mustara was born. He only took a few hours to learn to run.

I think it was because it was Khushi, one of my favourites, and Mustara’s mother, that I lost my control. I pushed Padar’s chest and shouted at him: ‘Don’t just stand there. Do something!’

Padar stumbled backwards but he kept calm. ‘Beta, we cannot help her here.’

My voice took on a parody of Mr Giles’. ‘No, we can’t help. We can’t stay here, we have to march.’ It was Mr Giles who would decide Khushi’s fate, not us. My voice broke and Padar said nothing even though I had been disrespectful.

Alec and Tommy walked slowly over. Tommy’s smile was not as wide, a sorry smile. Alec put his arm across my shoulders. ‘If we were in Beltana we might have saved the calf,’ I said.

Alec didn’t say anything at all. I saw Padar pull out his knife and I turned the other way.

Khushi couldn’t travel because of her hip. She would have died slowly of hunger with the crows to peck out her eyes. So in mercy Mr Giles shot her. He felt it was his responsibility. Even though Mr Tietkens was with him, he strode up and down first and wiped his face. ‘We have forty miles before we reach the dam and the water we have won’t last long,’ I heard him say. ‘We cannot take the risk to wait until the camel can walk.’

Right then I wished I wasn’t on the expedition. How I had wanted to come. How exciting, I’d thought, to cross a desert with Padar. But at Beltana we could have nursed Khushi back to health.

I had said goodbye to Khushi and wiped my tears on her fur. She was always happy like her name; she was such a sweet cow. Even then she tried to kiss me.

When it was done we moved on. Mr Tietkens rode Malik and Malik’s load was shared between Rajah and Asif. No one spoke. The camels were the difference between our surviving or not. To have to kill one made everyone serious, not just Padar and I who had lost a friend.

I patted Mustara and he grunted. Now we were both motherless.