We carry the whisky boxes up from the hold and lower them down into the dinghy, before ferrying them ashore to a shallow cave in the cliff. We have to wait for the right tide, and it takes trip after trip in the small boat. The slim sandy beach against the cliff where we need to land the cargo can only be reached at low tide, as it is underwater for half a day. Even then, guiding the dinghy between the rocks takes a lot of skill, but Bosun Stevenson manoeuvres the dinghy so it lands in much the same spot each time no matter how much the sea swells and surges.
Then we wait. And wait. The weather is miserable. The wind is unrelenting and the rain comes in sheets. I have never been so cold in all my life.
Finally, on the third day, just on sunset, Briggs calls to the Captain.
A big man wearing a black skipper’s hat has appeared through the rain, stepping from a gap in the rocks at the cliff base and onto the narrow beach. A group of men leading a train of donkeys quickly appear behind him.
The Captain strides forward with his hand out, a broad smile on his face. ‘Baxter, you old reprobate. You got my telegram then?’
‘What I could understand of it,’ he answers. ‘Some sort of code. It took ages to figure out.’
‘Well, I couldn’t very well announce my plans to the telegraphist could I? He would have been up and across the road to the constables before the machine stopped dotting and dashing,’ laughs the Captain.
‘No, I suppose not,’ Baxter answers. ‘You made good time then, Bowen?’
‘The winds down this way are astonishing,’ says the Captain. ‘A bathtub would make record time.’
He isn’t joking. The winds on the south coast never let up, blowing in the mornings from inland and then cold from the south-west, straight off Antarctica, every afternoon, every day.
We load the train of donkeys with the boxes, four crates lashed to each side. At least all the work warms me up a little. As the last one is tied on, and we are about to head out and away from the cave and through the cutting in the rock, I catch the Captain’s eye.
‘Captain?’ I ask. ‘Where are we headed?’
‘Albany,’ he answers.
‘But we’re nowhere near Albany. I’ve seen the chart. It’s miles away.’
‘Think about it, Red,’ he replies. ‘We can’t very well sail into Albany harbour with a cargo load of illegal whisky, can we? The authorities would be all over us like a medieval plague. In this cove, the Dragon is well protected and hidden from passing ships and there is not much directly inland from here. It’s a bit of a trek along the coast, but it’ll be worth it. Believe me, it’ll be well worth it.’
We head through the rocks in single file and onto a slippery pathway that rises steeply upwards and out on to the very edge of the cliff.
Even if he had tried for a whole year, the Captain could not have picked a better night than this wretched one for avoiding the Customs officers, or anyone at all, come to that. I am sure no one else would have been out on the edge of this slippery cliff in such horrendous weather, for all the gold in Bendigo.
Lightning flashes directly overhead and the cracks of thunder shake our souls to the very core. Freezing rain lashes sideways, threatening to blow us down onto the jagged rocks below. In the bright white flashes, we can glimpse enormous white waves relentlessly pounding the cliffs, the roar of the water making it almost impossible to be heard.
The track is far too close to the edge for my liking. One wrong step will be rewarded with nothing but thin air all the way to the maelstrom roaring below us.
I can just see the Captain up ahead waiting for me to catch up, his oilskin blowing away from his legs. His hat has been pulled down low over his ears. ‘Tread carefully, Red,’ he shouts. ‘There’s another creek washing over the path up ahead. It’ll wash your feet from under you if you let it. And over the edge you’ll go.’
‘I’m hanging on, Captain,’ I call. I do not need telling twice as my survival instinct works very well.
‘And if the donkeys slip and start to fall, don’t try to stop them. With their weight, they’ll take you over the edge with them.’
That is fine with me. I had already decided that no snorting donkey is going to get me killed.
Ordinarily, the donkeys would be roped together end to end, and led by one man, but with such a valuable cargo, the Captain doesn’t want one to go over the edge and drag the whole line over as well. Luckily, the donkeys seem to be more surefooted than the men.
Just as I am thinking that, another lightning flash lights up the sky. I can see the white skeletons of what can only have been several donkeys scattered on a rocky ledge. The ribs of a man picked clean by seabirds could just as easily have been among them.
The thunderclap that instantly follows the lightning is so sudden and so earsplitting that it takes me by surprise. I jerk involuntarily and lose my footing. My boots shoot out from under me in the slimy, oily mud and I slide straight towards the cliff’s edge. I yell out in panic. There is nothing to grab hold of to stop me going right over. In a second, I will be off the path and plummetting down towards the skeletons on the ledge. I yell again in terror as my feet shoot out in midair. Oh God, I am right off the edge of the cliff. I’m falling.
‘Red! Red!’ The Captain’s voice is pure panic, the last sound I will ever hear.
The donkey’s guide rope burns through my palm, just like the mainsail sheet during the typhoon. I plunge down. Down. And jerk to a halt, nearly ripping my arm from my shoulder.
‘Ahhh!’
The rope has a knot in the end stopping my slide. I grab the rope with both hands, my legs kicking wildly in the air, desperately trying to find a foothold that isn’t there. The rope whips back and forward as the braying donkey shakes it’s head violently, trying desperately to get rid of me.
It would be so unfair to die now, in a stupid accident, having survived this far.
‘Red,’ Captain Bowen yells again, but more calmly this time. ‘Hang on. I’ll haul you up. Don’t let go, whatever you do.’
With one hand clutching the donkey’s bridle to settle it, the Captain leans out over the cliff and heaves me one-handed straight up and into his arms in a single movement. He crushes me against his chest as I shiver and shake until the horrors slowly ease.
‘Cap… Cap… Captain,’ I stammer, too shocked to speak properly.
‘Don’t do that to me again, Red,’ he whispers hoarsely. ‘We’ve come too far to lose you now.’
I nod my head, still not quite believing how perilously close I have just come to certain death. Below, another massive wave smashes into the cliff, sending spray flying, just to remind me of my lucky escape.
All night the trek continues, the slippery, rain-sodden track continuously rising up the side of the cliff until eventually it begins to level out. I take every single step carefully for the rest of the journey. Finally, as the feeble glow of dawn starts to reflect off the sea, and after one of the longest, most miserable nights of my life, my legs and my palm aching, we change direction, heading downwards and inland.
I sigh with relief as the path flattens out. We are now heading gradually downhill on a wider but even muddier path. Several times, I slip and land on my knees as my feet become stuck in the black, treacle-like mess. My new clothes and boots are never going to be the same again.
‘Look!’ calls Briggs. A faint light flickers in the distance, and I make out the silhouette of a building at the edge of a rock-lined cove. This one is even more hidden. It is just like a bottleneck with the entrance obscured behind jagged boulders. Waves crash against the rocks throwing up white spray. As we grow closer, we see a hut made of local granite set back from a rocky beach, surrounded by more massive boulders. No one could come across this concealed building by accident.
The light glows from a window beside a solid-looking front door and looks warm and inviting. I can think of nothing better than getting inside that room out of the driving rain and tucking up by a roasting fire.
The Captain bangs on the door and moments later, it is flung open by an enormous woman. ‘Well, blow me down, Captain James Bowen, you gorgeous man,’ she chirps. ‘We’ve been expecting you. Thought the Customs Johnnies had finally done for you. Starting to get a mite worried, I was.’ She looks out over the Captain’s shoulder at the weather. ‘But if ever there was a night you’d come, this’d be the one. Blacker than a bishop’s heart, it sure is.’
She stands filling the doorway, so fat she almost blocks out the light behind her.
The Captain pulls off his glove, reaches for her hand, leans forward, and kisses it delicately. ‘Mrs Baxter. You’re looking as lovely as ever. And, unfortunately, your old crook of a husband is not at the end of a noose yet, so I’m destined to remain a bachelor. Though I see they’d need a thicker hanging rope these days,’ he says. ‘You’ve been feeding him well these past few months.’
‘Where is that hopeless excuse for a man?’
As she says it, Mr Baxter, the hopeless excuse, arrives. He had been leading the last donkey in the line.
‘Get a move on,’ she calls, ‘so the Captain can come in out of the weather and I can shut this damn door! I’d rather be curled up by my fireplace with this charming creature than looking at your ugly mug any day. So help me that be the truth. Well, best get them donkeys in the stable, then get yourselves inside here for a warming ale.’