Coasts of Cape York (28 page)

Willy's father answered that. “I was told, but it may not be true, that in the old days any Aborigine found in another tribe's area without good reason was usually killed.”

Andrew agreed and added, “Jacky Jacky came from New South Wales. He was way out of his area.”

“He wouldn't have even been able to speak the local language,” Willy's father said.

Marjorie looked surprised. “Did the Aborigines have more than one language?”

“Yes they did,” Willy's father answered.

The ‘Catalina' went into a sharp bank to the right. Willy felt a twinge of alarm, then Mr Jemmerling said over the intercom, “Crocodile.”

Willy had to leave his seat and look through Marjorie's porthole but he clearly saw the huge saurian swimming along in what looked to be open sea. Then, as the aircraft continued to turn, he saw the mangroves of the river estuary. “It looks like a gecko on the ceiling from up here,” he observed.

“You wouldn't think so if you were down in the water with him!” Stick said with a laugh.

Once again Willy had an almost overpowering flashback, with ghastly images of the shark tearing at the corpse. He shook his head and tried to look away.

Marjorie said, “It's a long way from the shore.”

Willy's father said, “They swim in the sea. I have heard accounts of crocodiles swimming from Australia to New Guinea. They certainly often swim from one river mouth to another near Cairns.”

“Wouldn't the sharks eat them?” Stick asked.

Willy's father smiled and shook his head. “I think they would win in any fight with a shark, with their teeth, claws and armoured hide,” he said.

Once again images of sharks swamped Willy's consciousness and he shuddered. But then they spotted more crocodiles. These were basking on mud banks and went scurrying into the water as the aircraft roared low overhead.

The aircraft then leveled out and climbed higher, for which even Willy was thankful as the air had now heated up and there was a fair bit of turbulence. Mr Jemmerling came on again to say, “We are now flying over Albany Sound and on your left are the remains of the first permanent European settlement, a place called ‘Somerset'. It was settled by the Jardine family in 1864. The two sons drove a herd of beef cattle from near Bowen to here in an epic journey.”

Willy looked down on a stretch of bright blue water and saw a small bay on his left with a sandy beach backed by a scrub covered slope. On top of the slope was a road, some ruined buildings all overgrown with vines and weeds and, to Willy's surprise, three old fashioned cannons and a memorial. “I can see three guns,” he cried.

“There was a Royal Marine garrison here for a few years,” his father said.

“It was to be a new Singapore,” Andrew added.

Willy watched the place slip astern, to be lost in a wilderness of rocky, scrub-covered hills, mangrove swamps and savanna woodland. ‘Bloody hell! Poor buggers!' he thought. To him I did not look a very promising site but he did concede he knew very little about such things.

Mr Jemmerling then announced that soon they would fly over the very tip of Cape York, the most northerly bit of the Australian mainland.

Stick came and looked out of Willy's porthole. Then he pointed and said, “There it is, the pointy bit!”

Willy smiled, picturing maps of Australia. Seeing that small rocky cape gave him an odd feeling. ‘I have never been this far north before,' he told himself. He found he felt both excited and uneasy, sensing that beyond the cape it was all ‘foreign', that vast world of New Guinea and Asia.

The ‘Catalina' banked and did a wide circle around Cape York so that everyone got a good look. As it did Willy noted numerous rocks, and rocky islands. Andrew drew his attention to the swirls of a vicious tide rip between the tip of the cape and two rocky islands just beyond. “That would be a deadly place for a sailing ship,” he said.

Willy agreed. Then he pointed out a line of tiny figures. They were tourists. ‘I must go there one day,' he thought.

After circling once more Mr Jemmerling said, “Right people, that was the ‘Pointy Bit'. Now let's see some crashed aircraft.”

The ‘Catalina' now headed South West down the ‘Gulf' coast. On the way they flew past Possession Island ‘Where Captain Cook claimed New South Wales- he meant all of eastern Australia- for King George the third of England'. Ten minutes later they flew past Seisia and the small port in the Red Island passage. From there they turned inland and flew over the settlements that made up the Bamaga community. Willy had often heard about Bamaga but was quite surprised at how big it was and how well developed it appeared to be.

Mr Jemmerling said, “We are approaching the Bamaga airstrip. It was built by American Army engineers during World War Two and the airfield was called Henderson Field or, more commonly, Jack Jacky airstrip. Now it is called the Injinu Airport. We are going to fly past at a thousand feet, then come down to five hundred for a second circuit. As we do we will hopefully see three aircraft wrecks.”

There was a pause and then Mr Jemmerling went on, “My local map tells me there are the wrecks of a D.C. 3, a ‘Kittyhawk', and a ‘Beaufort' bomber.”

It was midday by this time and the land had heated up so that the turbulence was very noticeable. As the ‘Catalina' bumped and swooped through the thermals Willy tightened his seat belt and looked out. Clearly in view was the bitumen road from Bamaga town to the airstrip. Following instructions over the intercom from Mr Beck he had no trouble in locating the DC3 wreck just after they flew over the gravel road that went off to the south.

The bitumen runway came into view and then slid astern. As he looked out Willy realized he could see right across Australia at that point. ‘That is the Coral Sea I can see out to port and the Gulf of Carpentaria to starboard- the Pacific Ocean on one side and the Indian Ocean on the other.'

That realization gave him a definite thrill and sense of adventure. Then his attention was taken up by the buffeting of the aircraft as it banked around to port across the mudflats and mangrove swamps along Jacky Jacky Creek. ‘Bit bumpy,' he thought, but it did not bother him and he was able to focus his eyes on the areas where Mr Beck was now saying the other wrecks were.

Because the country was covered in savannah woodland and not scrub or jungle, and using a couple of dirt roads as references, Willy was able to locate the wreck of the ‘Beaufort'. He saw it was in a clearing with a ring road around the pieces of wreckage.

Of the ‘Kittyhawk' wreck he saw nothing. The ‘Catalina' kept on, flying a big oval course; north towards Bamaga, then coming around to do a southerly run, coming lower as it did. This increased the turbulence and Willy noted Marjorie looking a bit pale and tense.

On this ‘pass' Willy noted that the DC3 wreck was directly in line with the runway. ‘Crashed while landing?' he wondered.

They flew on over the airport and its one building terminal. Outside on the bitumen apron were two small twin-engine aircraft. Several vehicles, including a white mini-bus stood in a car park. At least twenty people stood out in the open, staring up and waving.

The ‘Catalina' flew past them and then turned and went around the end of the runway back to the location of the ‘Beaufort'. As it did the turbulence became so rough that Willy at last began to become concerned. At the ‘Beaufort' wreck the aircraft was taken around in a tight circle, left wing down. This allowed Willy a really good view and he was able to take some photos.

“I wonder why it crashed?” he said to no-one in particular.

Andrew answered, his voice sounding quite anxious, “Probably doing the same thing we are.”

“Don't you like it Andrew?” Stick asked.

“No. It's bloody rough. I've never been sea sick but this is getting at me,” Andrew replied.

Marjorie added, “I will be sick if we keep doing this.”

Luckily for her they didn't. The ‘Catalina' banked and then straightened up, to make a landing circuit. Once again the turbulence was bad and Willy felt a few uneasy twinges as the machine sank and swooped in the heated air. One particularly sickening lurch even had him mutter and say to himself, “Bloody hell, we will join the DC3 if we aren't careful!”

The buffeting continued, Willy very conscious of the way his seat belt kept pulling at him as the plane dropped and then felt loose as it was lifted abruptly on a thermal. He watched the wings wobble as the pilot tried to hold the aircraft steady.

Stick looked down and said, “We are just passing over that wrecked D.C. 3.”

A very anxious looking Marjorie said, “There are an awful lot of aircraft wrecks around here. I hope it is safe.”

To reassure her Willy said, “This is a good aeroplane, tried and tested.”

“Yeah, sixty bloody years tried. That is old and worn out,” Stick said as another updraught sent them into a sickening swoop.

“It has been fully reconditioned,” Willy said, but as he did the aircraft dropped suddenly, sending his stomach into his throat. A niggling little worry about pieces of wire being repeatedly bent caused him to think that perhaps something could go wrong with such an old aircraft. ‘Landing and taking off are the most dangerous times,' he reminded himself.

Then the plane lurched, slewed and dropped.

 

CHAPTER 18

 

TORRES STRAIT

 

Just as Willy felt a rush of fear the pilot regained control. Willy heard the engines roar and saw that the flaps were fully extended. To his relief he saw the boundary of the airstrip slip past underneath. He badly wished he could see out the front and that he was in control. ‘I'm not a good passenger,' he thought.

By then the landing gear had been extended and Willy watched with interest as the wheel on his side came closer and closer to the ground- dry, brown grass. This was suddenly replaced by bitumen and Willy felt easier. Then the rubber tyre made contact and there was the usual puff of smoke and screeching noise and then they were down, the tyre spinning and rolling easily.

The ‘Catalina' was taxied in and parked beside a ‘Metro'. Once the propellers had stopped Harvey came through and told them they could all get out and move to the terminal building. They did this, Andrew loudly saying how glad he was to be on the ground again. “I think I'll stick to ships in future,” he said.

There was quite a welcoming group there. At first Willy just thought they were people who were waiting for an aircraft but then he realized that they were gathered to see the ‘Catalina'. Mr Jemmerling stepped off to a greeting by local leaders and even a news reporter with a camera. Mr Hobbs and Harvey moved Willy and the other the passengers to one side once that was all done.

It was very hot out in the sun and Willy gladly moved to the shade of the terminal, a shed with a small office at one end and toilets on the side. It was stifling inside but still cooler than outside. While there Willy saw a group of school children being led forward to look at the aircraft. To add to Willy's sense of being in a ‘foreign' place he noted that nearly all the school children were indigenous. Mr Jemmerling spoke to them for a few minutes, then left the crew to look after the visitors while he walked over to the terminal.

For the next half hour the group enjoyed a picnic lunch. Willy sat with Marjorie and his parents and they discussed what they had seen during the flight. “There is a lot of wild country in Cape York Peninsula,” Willy commented.

“Certainly a lot of nothing much,” his father agreed.

When the school group had inspected the plane the aircrew joined them for lunch. Willy enjoyed a bottle of cold lemonade and was able to relax and even daydream a bit. He found it all quite different, especially being outnumbered by black people. He had seen plenty in Cairns. There were at least fifty at his high school, but in the normal course of his life he rarely met one, other than Torres Strait Islanders like Luke. Here the indigenous people were the majority and on their ‘home ground'.

A cheerful white man in shorts, and open shirt and thongs arrived and announced he was their driver. The group, including the aircrew, was ushered out to where the mini-bus waited. Willy climbed in and allowed Marjorie to sit beside him. When all were aboard they drove out of the car park and along a bitumen road in savannah woodland.

Five minutes later they reached the junction of the road to ‘The South'- to Weipa and Cairns. They turned left and then almost immediately turned left again onto a dirt track through the trees. A minute later they parked near the DC3 wreck.

Willy found the visit to the wreck disturbing and saddening. He noted that the machine must have come down among trees, ripping its wings off and then smashing in its nose and breaking the fuselage in two. When he read that it was a civilian airliner, belonging to Australian National Airways, and flown by a civilian pilot he was surprised. He had assumed it was a military aircraft. Then when he read that the plane had flown all night from Archerfield near Brisbane to Bamaga, with refueling stops at Cairns and Cooktown he shook his head.

‘The pilots must have been exhausted,' he mused, picturing them trying to do a night landing on an unfamiliar strip. ‘This area is up on a sort of ridge, much higher than the actual runway,' he noted. ‘Perhaps they just miscalculated how high above the ground they were?' Whatever the cause, he felt it was an avoidable tragedy. ‘When I am a pilot I will try to be more careful,' he thought.

What also surprised him was what good condition much of the wreck was in. The aluminium skin and spars mostly looked to be in reasonable condition, only a bit tarnished. Even some of the rubber was still not completely perished. Several parts looked so shiny and new it was hard to believe they had been lying out in the weather for sixty years.

As he studied the mangled and torn wreckage Willy tried to imagine what those last seconds might have been like. ‘Did the passengers have any warning?' he wondered, ‘or did it all just happen in a few horrible seconds?'