Chapter Eleven
“IT WASN’T JEWELS. I don’t know who it was, mate, but it wasn’t Jewels. She’d never do such a thing.”
Brian was speaking loudly over the noise of the engine, road, and wind through the open windows, and I had to yell back. It was an old jeep, and there was no air-conditioning. The engine whined and hissed up and down the hills in the dry heat. The road wasn’t so bumpy now, but every time he made a sharp turn, I had to grab the underbelly of the seat, and hold onto Hollie. I couldn’t see anything either, which made me very uncomfortable.
“You don’t sound Australian,” I said.
“Aye, that’d be ’cause I’m not.”
“Where are you from?”
“Ireland, my son. Didn’t she tell you that?”
“No. We didn’t talk that long, really.”
“Lots of Irish folk down here. You’re from Canada, are you?”
“Yes. Newfoundland.”
“Any good fishin’ there?”
“Yah, pretty good.”
“I’ll have to go an’ see it for myself then.” Brian turned the steering wheel sharply, and we left the road and went over a steep hill. He drove fast, as if we were in a cross-country race. I wondered if anyone could hear us shouting. “Have you found yourself in situations like this before, Alfred?”
“Not exactly like this. Usually it’s at sea.”
“That’s right, you’re travelling the world in a submarine. But where is it then? Where do you leave a submarine when you’re not using it?”
I realized I had to make a decision about whether I could really trust Brian or not. Probably I could, but I wasn’t certain.
“What is Jewels’ nickname?”
“My wife?” He laughed. “Aye, that’d be Brass-knuckles Bennett. You don’t trust me then. Can’t say I blame you. You’ve got good reasons to be suspicious.”
He could have known those things. “What was the name of the man I thought was her?” He could only know that if she told him, and I figured she would have told her husband that.
“Ahh…that’d be that Lovelace fellah. Richard…is that his name? Big fella with a soft voice. Doesn’t look anything like my wife.” He laughed again.
“Yah, that’s him. My sub’s sitting on the harbour floor.”
“On the bottom?”
“Yah.”
“Right there in the harbour?”
“Yup.”
“Right next to the navy?”
“Yup.”
He burst out laughing. “And they’re out looking for you all over kingdom come, and your submarine’s sitting right there under their noses.” He paused. “Why didn’t you just tell them it wasn’t you then?”
“Because I was afraid they’d find out about Jewels, and think she was the one who did it.”
“God love ya, you’re a loyal mate. Is that the way people are in Newfoundland then?”
“Pretty much.”
“Then I’ll have to go there for sure.”
We crested another hill, and Brian warned me to hold on tight because it might get rough on the way down. I didn’t see how it could get any rougher than it already was, but it did. Every time we hit a bump or a rock, it was like getting kicked by a horse. We went downhill for what seemed like forever, faster and faster, sometimes sliding sideways, and I struggled not to think that we were going to crash. It would have helped if I had been able to see.
Finally, we reached the bottom, and Brian skidded to a stop. I could smell dust in the air, and the burning of the engine. It was working a lot harder than was good for it. Brian shut it off and suddenly there was silence. He told me I could sit up now. When I crawled out from under the seat, my head was spinning. We were hidden in a cloud of dust and dark shade. I had to wave the dust away from my face with my hat because there was no wind. “Where are we?”
“Beneath a bridge. On the river.”
“Is there any water in the river?”
“No, none. Dry as a skeleton.”
“Why are we stopping?”
“We’d be listening for that airplane. I want to make sure it doesn’t see us drive up river. A few miles upstream from here and we’re clear, mate. We’ll just wait twenty minutes or so. That ought to do it.”
So we sat, waited, and listened for the drone of an engine in the sky. But after a few minutes I just had to ask Brian something. I whispered. “Why did you come looking for me?”
“Aye. Well, Jewels told me about meeting you, before she flew back to Sydney. And then I saw on the news that they were looking for you, and I knew that you hadn’t done it, so I just had to lend you a hand. I couldn’t see a young fellah like yourself landing in prison for a crime you didn’t commit. I’ll be flying back to Sydney myself in a few days, just after I get a little fishin’ in with some of my mates. This jeep belongs to one of them.”
“I really appreciate that. But how did you know that it wasn’t me who did it?”
“Well…let’s just say I have an idea maybe I know who did. But the less we talk about that the better, don’t you think? You can’t be charged with conspiring to commit sabotage if you don’t know who did it.”
“Fair enough.”
“All I knew for certain was that it wasn’t you. And I couldn’t sit around and watch you take the fall for it.”
“Thank you for helping me out.”
“Aye. I’ve got a feeling you’d do the same for me.”
“I would.”
“There you go. Have you got a plan then, Alfred?”
“I was going to wait a week or so, then sneak back to the pier, grab the sub, and disappear.”
“Do you think maybe you’re safer taking it now when they’re thinking you’re up here wanderin’ around in the parks?”
“That’s a good point.”
“You’re good at disappearing I take it.”
“At sea I am.”
“Where do you plan on going next?”
“Tasmania.”
“Aye, that’s a great place. I’ve got friends there you can stay with, if you’d like. But tell me, how do you plan on sneaking into the pier with the dog on your back?”
“I’ll have to leave him on shore until I bring the sub up to the surface. Then I’ll jump out and carry him in.”
“But won’t they see the sub when it’s on the surface?”
“No. I’ll bring the portal out of the water just a couple of inches. And I’ll do it in the middle of the night. I’m not worried about being seen as much as being detected on radar.”
“So, supposing you get your dog inside, and you’re ready to go, how on earth do you sneak out of the harbour past the navy?”
“That’s the tricky part. I have to wait for a boat or ship to pass close enough to the pier to pedal underneath it. I have a stationary bike hooked up to the driveshaft. It’s slow, but undetectable by sonar. Once we’re under a ship, I turn on the battery power and follow the ship out to sea. That’s our best way to escape. We’ve done it before.”
“I think maybe you should be working for the Special Forces, Alfred. Or maybe you are working for the Special Forces already, and you’re not allowed to tell me. And that’s a Special Forces dog you’ve got there in the bag. He sniffs out bombs and terrorists, does he?”
I laughed. “He probably could, but I wouldn’t be willing to put his life at risk like that.”
“Tell me, Alfred, does it have to be a big ship that you hide under, or will a motorboat do?”
“A motorboat would do, if it’s big enough.”
“Well, you’re in luck then ’cause my mate’s got one down at the marina, and I’ll just have to ask him for the keys, and we’re all set.”
“Really? You wouldn’t mind going to all that trouble?”
“Not at all, my son, not at all. I know you’d do the same for me if I were a Special Forces agent trying to escape the Australian navy.”
“I would.”
“But do you truly know what you’re doing, attempting to escape right underneath their noses?”
“I have learned that sometimes the smartest thing to do is exactly what everyone assumes you’ll never do, because people don’t see what they’re not expecting to see. Besides, I don’t have a lot of choices.”
“I suppose not. But how do you get into the submarine when it’s sitting on the bottom? Have you got a special door underneath it then?”
“No. I go in through the hatch.”
“On the top?”
“Yah.”
“But doesn’t the sea flood into it?”
“Yes, but I open and close it so quickly that only a couple of feet of water comes in, and the sump pumps take it out in ten minutes or so.”
He turned and looked at me again. “You’re serious?”
“Yes.”
“But isn’t it some bloody unnerving to open the hatch under water?”
“I’m getting used to it.”
“You’re not your average teenager, you must know that, do you, Alfred?”
“Yah, I guess so. But I don’t know any other way to be.”
“Aye. That’d be true for the lot of us.”