Coasts of Cape York (50 page)

Graham pulled the tiller across and the boat went surging around to starboard. A second later they shot behind the protection of
Wewak's
steel hull. Willy saw Capt Kirk staring down at them, a surprised look on his face. Pointing aft Willy shouted up, “Pirates! Murderers! Get a gun!”

Graham eased the throttle and yelled, “Get aboard!”

But Jacob screamed no. “No! I am not safe there! They will kill me. I am a witness to Karl's murder.”

“They wouldn't dare surely,” Carmen suggested. Her face was strained and tight-lipped.

Glancing back Willy did a quick calculation. ‘We will never get aboard in time.' He looked at Graham. “Graham, we won't make it in time. Take us round the bow before they come into sight.”

Graham nodded and Carmen dragged Julia down as the boat surged forward. As they sped along close beside the rusty and weed-encrusted black hull Willy kept glancing back, hoping they would get out of sight before the launch appeared. And there it was! The
Saurian
slid into view seconds before they reached the bow.

 

 

CHAPTER 32

 

DESPERATE CHOICES

 

As though in slow motion Willy saw the masked man on the foredeck of the launch raise his rifle. It appeared to be aimed straight at him. His whole being seemed to freeze and he could only stare in horrified fascination. Then he saw the man twitch and the tiniest puff of smoke was instantly dispersed by the wind.

Tiing! Whheee!

Willy cringed as the bullet smacked into the steel side of the LCT and then ricocheted off across the river.

“Only a ‘twenty two',” Graham grunted.

Willy marveled at how calm Graham seemed. As they slid under the shelter of the bow ramp Willy looked around. “Which way should we go?” he asked. He could see there were three options: try to run upstream to find somewhere to hide; get aboard the LCT and hope the adults could protect them; or run back down the river along the other side of the
Wewak.

The others had also obviously been assessing the alternate course of action open to them because Jacob pointed upriver. “That way!” he shouted.

Graham shook his head and slowed the boat as he reached the other side of the ramp. “No. It is half a kilometre to the next bend. They would either catch us or shoot us. The only reason that mongrel missed then was because the launch was bouncing around on our wake. Besides, there is nowhere to go.”

“But there must be a town with police,” Julia cried. She looked terrified and was crying.

Willy stared at her in disbelief. ‘Has she not looked at a map of Cape York Peninsula?' he wondered.

“There isn't,” Graham snapped shortly. He didn't wait to debate but turned the boat sharply to starboard. They scraped through under the mooring rope which stretched across to the nearby mangroves. Then Graham opened the throttle and the boat surged along the LCT's starboard side.

As they came level with the gap between the end of the tank deck and the start of the superstructure Graham called, “Andrew, stand up and have a look.”

Andrew did so, but immediately bobbed down again. “Get going!” he hissed. “One of them is climbing aboard with a pistol.”

Before anyone could argue Graham opened the throttle and the boat lifted its bow and started off. Willy and the others all stared up at the deck of the
Wewak
as they slipped past the superstructure. To Willy's consternation he saw Mrs Kirk step out and block the path of the man. The man had an automatic pistol and, as she tried to stop him, he pushed her roughly aside and waved the gun in her face.

Carmen saw this and gasped. “Graham, that man has got your mum!” she cried.

Graham glanced back and swore, then his mouth set in a hard line. But he kept the throttle open and the boat pointed down river. A couple of seconds later the boat sped past the stern of the LCT and out onto open water. Willy looked back and saw the hooded gunman shove Mrs Kirk aside. Then the man ran along the deck to the stern and raised his pistol.

“Come back or else!” the man screamed.

Willy cringed and hunched lower, conscious that Graham had no intention of obeying. A glance showed they were now 25 metres away already.

Bang!

The heavier thump of the pistol sounded simultaneous with the crack of the passing bullet. Where it went Willy had no idea. Graham sent the boat into a skidding side slew, then back the other way. Willy cringed and clung on.

Bang!

‘Missed,' Willy thought. He glanced at the others to see if any were hit. None seemed to be. His eyes met Julia's and he realized that hers were wide with terror. Jacob looked ashen and was trembling, pale and sweating. His mother looked appalled and was sobbing. Carmen and Andrew both just looked tight-lipped and serious and Graham was obviously angry.

50 metres away. Another glance back showed Mrs Kirk and Kylie struggling with the man. The man rammed Mrs Kirk hard against the bulkhead and swung the gun to point it at Capt Kirk's face as he appeared on deck. ‘Oh my God!' Willy thought, fearing the worst.

75 metres. 100 metres. The boat surged down river past the yacht. As it did Willy looked back and saw the
Saurian
alongside the
Wewak.
There was a man on the launch, pointing at them and shouting to his mate.

Carmen pointed to the yacht. “We could use the radio to call for help,” she suggested.

A grim-faced Graham shook his head. “We won't have time. We need to get out of the area. I will look for a trawler or ship,” he replied.

So they roared on down the river. To Willy's enormous relief he saw that the gunman on the
Wewak
had let go of Mrs Kirk and was shepherding her, Kylie and Capt Kirk into the saloon.

‘I hope he isn't going to shoot them all,' he thought. The horrible thought crossed his mind that his father might be shot. It made him feel ill. He doubted if the men would really murder the eight people still on the LCT but there was a dreadful feeling of apprehension. ‘But they might shoot us if they catch us,' he decided.

Spurred on by that terrifying prospect Willy felt relief as they rounded the bend in the river and the other vessels vanished from view. After his ordeal of being under a death sentence by some crooks back in June he knew just what real terror was.

Graham did not slow down. All he did was scan the banks for possible landing sites. “We could land you and you could scatter and hide,” he suggested.

Even as he said this Willy saw a huge crocodile slither down the bank and vanish into the murky water off to port in a swirl of foam and bubbles. ‘Bloody hell!' he thought. ‘Talk about being caught between the devil and the deep blue sea!'

The others saw it too and Julia gave a near hysterical shriek and cried, “I am not going ashore here!”

“Further along the coast on the beach then,” Graham replied.

By then they were at the mouth of the river and Willy was amazed at the change an hour could bring. What had been miles of sandy flats and shoals were now just water and the ripples of gentle surf. The open sea spread out to the horizon.

Despite the urgent need to get away Graham slowed down and Andrew stood up to act as lookout in the bows. “We will look a right pack of clowns if we run aground and get caught,” Graham commented.

As far as possible they followed the same deepwater channel out. This curved left and went west for half a kilometre, the sand spit now all but submerged. Because the wind was blowing offshore the waves were tiny and of little help in detecting shoals.

Once they were out past the more obvious shoals and sand banks Graham opened the throttle again and set course North East, aiming directly across the bay for the tip of the Bathurst Range.

“Where are we going?” Julia asked.

“The Rattlesnake Channel,” Graham answered. “That is a shipping route. I am hoping to find a big freighter or a trawler. They will have a radio we can use.”

The surface of Princess Charlotte Bay was a mass of tiny waves over which the boat thumped in a hammering smack-smack-smack-smack. Each impact threw up a small shower of spray but as the wind was from astern and they were traveling much faster than the tiny waves it was not bad going.

Then Willy saw Julia's face go drawn as she looked astern. “Oh no! Here they come!” she cried.

Willy looked astern and saw the far off shape of the
Saurian
. Because of its colouring the launch was very hard to see against the dark coastline but the little puffs of white at her bows were plain to see.

“About two kilometres astern,” Andrew estimated.

Graham frowned. “They didn't go as far west as we did to get through the sand bars,” he commented.

Carmen answered that. “They possibly know the river better.”

Willy agreed. “If they have been hiding ever since the murder then that might be their hideout?”

“Quite likely,” Graham agreed. He kept looking astern and then began biting his lip. “I think she is faster than us,” he said. “Andrew, Carmen can you measure their size and then keep checking? I want to know if she is catching up.”

“I know how to do that,” Carmen said. “Andrew, use your finger. Note the size of the launch against it, but keep the finger the same distance from your face each time,” she explained.

Andrew gave a wry smile. “Aren't you supposed to use a sextant to do that, to measure the height of the other ships masts by exact degrees?”

“Don't be a smart aleck little brother. Just do it,” Carmen replied.

For ten minutes they sped on. Willy did some comparing with the others. By then he was sure and he felt his heart sinking. “They are definitely faster,” he said.

“They are gaining alright,” Andrew agreed, “And also heading closer inshore than us.”

Jacob gave a sort of whimper. He looked ashen faced and was visibly trembling. His mother cried, “Oh do something! Get us out of here!”

That really annoyed Willy. “Oh be quiet!” he snapped. “We are doing the best we can.”

“But they might catch us!” Mrs van der Heyden wailed.

“Then give them the bloody map to the treasure and maybe they will leave us alone,” Willy snapped.

“But they might still kill us,” Mrs van der Heyden replied amid sniffles.

“So there is a treasure map?” Willy asked, meeting Jacob's eyes.

Jacob nodded and then sobbed. “Oh they can have it! I'm scared.”

Willy curled his lip and then asked sarcastically, “Do you have spare copies of the map?”

Again Jacob nodded. Willy thought about this and then decided that the gunmen might still feel driven to have to cover their tracks by murder. “Too risky. Anyway, we can't negotiate out here in a little boat on the open ocean,” he said.

He saw Graham nod. Graham then turned the boat to angle it in towards the shore. But because they had been steering directly across the bay they were nearly five kilometres out and the beach was just visible. Graham said, “I will try to land most of you on the beach and you can hide in the bush while I go on and look for a ship,” he said.

That seemed like a good choice to Willy so he nodded. The others made no reply. For the next fifteen minutes the boat sped on, blatting across the wave tops, the waves now coming in on the starboard quarter and causing some rolling and spray.

At the end of that time the boat was about 3km offshore. By then the mountains were looming large and looking very rugged. The flat shoreline where the mouth of the river lay had long since dropped out of sight below the horizon. Graham kept studying the launch and then shook his head. “We aren't going to make it,” he said with flat finality. “Those mongrels are gaining and they are inshore of us.”

“Converging course,” Andrew commented. Willy understood. Not only was the larger boat a bit faster but it had a shorter distance to go.

Reluctantly Graham changed course, once more aiming for the tip of the cape. This was now only about 5 kilometres away. Graham scanned the coast and then the horizon, shaking his head in frustration. “Oh, where are all the ships?” he muttered.

Willy looked around the horizon and remembered Capt Kirk's words. ‘The empty ocean,' he called it'. The strong possibility that they might not meet another vessel at all sent a deep chill of fear through him but he said nothing.

Andrew said, “Maybe we can lose them in the dark?”

Both Carmen and Graham shook their heads. “It is only seventeen thirty. There are another two hours of daylight almost. They will be up with us by then,” Carmen said.

That brought another whimper from Julia and sniffles from Mrs van der Heyden. Willy felt sick, and it wasn't only from fear. Forty five minutes of thumping across waves of ever increasing size and with the following wind wafting the fumes from the motor forward were also having an effect. On top of a splitting headache he felt sick in the stomach and very thirsty. The sight of the blazing sun and the clear blue sky made him heartily sick of the sea.

Then another crisis slowly emerged. The launch crept closer all the time but in doing so moved up until it was nearly abreast of them and in between them and the land. Willy estimated that it was only a kilometre away. There was obviously very little chance of them getting past it to the shore.

“My mistake,” Graham commented. “I should have put you all ashore as soon as we left the river mouth. I think he means to force us away from the coast.”

Willy looked ahead. The tip of Bathurst Head was now almost abreast of them. In the distance beyond it the rugged shapes of the Flinders Group began to come into view. “What about the islands?” he suggested.

Graham nodded. “Probably our only choice. If we can play hide and seek among them until dark we should get away.”

“That boat has got radar,” Carmen pointed out.

Willy looked and saw the small scanner on a short mast. It surprised him that such a small vessel would have such a fitting.