The Bridge at Koondrook

By Greg Hahn

An Australian prime minister is murdered. History will say that it was a tragic accident. Half a century passes, and Kate Austin, an Australian federal police officer, investigates the brutal death of undercover agents, only to find that their deaths are connected to a massive theft of military weapons. While consensus and political expediency combine to form the view that these acts are a new wave of terrorism, Kate is not so sure. The story follows the families of Chika, a young Japanese girl, and James Wheeler, who meet with Harold Bell Lasetter on his quest for a mythical reef of gold in the Western Deserts in the 1930s. Seventy years on, the families are reunited by a diary, which becomes the catalyst for murderous events. Kate inadvertently becomes involved in the murders of a survey team in the dead heart of Australia as members of the rich and powerful Wheeler dynasty are cut down, but why? The deeper Kate digs, the darker her world becomes as she tracks an unholy trio of sadistic and brutal killers through time to find their secrets that spread out across the years. A secret communication base, a mythical gold mine, and a cyber attackcan Kate put together the pieces before the personal cost becomes too great?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Jun 28, 2016
• ISBN: 9781514496169

Greg Hahn

The author Greg Hahn loves political non- fiction and crime because real story lines leave fictional accounts pale in comparison. His first book, The Bridge at Koondrook. he transposes his fictional characters onto real uniquely Australian historical events. Greg has travelled extensively in the Outback and lives in the Bush. His life experiences bring a first-hand feel to his accounts of place. Greg lives with his wife Kathryn on the banks of the Murray River and has used the small towns of Barham and Koondrook as the backdrop for many events. Greg likes telling big stories so his novels evolve to be truly international in scope.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Cheviot Beach

December 17, 1967, Point Nepean.

Victoria, Southern Australia

The first Allied shot of World War I was fired not on the European fields of battle but on an isolated peninsula half a world away. John Purdue, a sergeant with the Royal Australian Garrison Artillery, let fly from a gun placement positioned at Port Nepean at the tip of Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula in South Eastern Australia. It was in the mid-afternoon on the fifth of August 1914 only a few hours after the European War was declared. Sergeant Purdue received a cable from Melbourne sent by the attorney general. The cable instructed his battery to fire a shot across the bow of a German cargo steamer, the SS Pfaiz, as it fled through the narrow heads that straddled the entrance to Port Phillip Bay.

The six-inch shell splashed down in front of the vessel as the local pilot, who until now was unaware of the unfolding events, began his struggle with the ship’s captain for control of the bridge before the decision to surrender was made. The shell descended through the clear water to settle into the muddy ooze of the bay’s silty base close to the main shipping channel. The deep channel followed the remnant course of the ancient Yarra River from a time when much lower sea levels prevailed during the last great ice age as the river flowed into the turbulent waters of Bass Strait.

Over time, the shell became covered with mud and detritus. In the low oxygen environment, it persisted. The ebbs and flows of some thirty eight thousand tidal changes had since passed and another world war. As for today? Australian troops were still engaged, this time on the foreign shores of South East Asia.

The shell slept unaware of the screws of a fishing vessel as it passed above its copper-oxide-encrusted surface. Above it, on the vessel’s deck was a blonde balding man. He was in his late fifties, coincidently he, too, was of German heritage. His name was Bastian Wolf. His first name was in honour of his grandfather who was Dutch. He stood, face turned into the wind, smoking his pipe.

He looked up from the trawler’s port side and gazed across at the concrete bunkers that surrounded the battery. Bastian, unlike most travellers who had passed through the ‘Heads’, knew of the events that had unfolded here over half a century ago. He scanned the turbulent, dangerous waters ahead and came to an understanding as to why the captain of the Pfaiz had so easily given up the flight. The strong tidal flows created a rip as the ocean’s water chased the moon as it was dragged through the narrow opening, pushing in and out of Port Phillip Bay. As he watched, the Rip was taking the vessel well to starboard. Bastian could sense that without the pilot, the Pfaiz would have founded those years ago, as had so many other ships at this notorious entrance.

Another man of similar age was at the helm. He was a weather-beaten man, who was running his eyes over the charts as the Rip began to take its hold. ‘Langsam—slowly,’ Bastian called. His accent was that of a native of the Alsace–Lorraine region near the French–German border where he had experienced his youth.

‘Nein, wir brauchen mehr power.’ The vessel’s motor roared as the helmsman sought to give himself the speed and control he needed.

On the timber deck, two young men sat silently smoking their unfiltered cigarettes. The two were surrounded by scuba diving equipment. Below the chop, beneath the waterline and invisible from the deck of the trawler, there ran a short towline. It held on to a submersible vehicle which followed the vessel as if it were a dog on a leash. The drag was becoming more problematic as the current took hold.

‘Ficken!’ The man at the helm called out as he struggled for control.

The young men sat quietly, nervously, as they checked and rechecked their equipment.

Bastian was not a large man and, beside his almost white hair, he was nondescript. Thin reading glasses pinched at the bridge of his nose, leaving telltale impressions. His teeth were yellow from tobacco and his skin grey from the reduced oxygen in his blood.

The vessel made its way through the heads and the swell from the open ocean ahead caused the deck to take on a sinusoidal motion; this quickly induced the nausea of motion sickness in Bastian. Its effects he refused to show.

‘You grew up around here, didn’t you boy?’ Bastian called to one of the young men. ‘You know what that concrete structure was back there?’ he said pointing back towards the observation bunker sitting within the battery complex.

This drew a blank look from the young man. ‘Natürlich nicht, of course not,’ Bastian murmured under his breath. He checked his watch and noted the time at which the vessel had emerged into the open waters before going into the vessel’s small cabin. He sat down to begin writing copious notes in his leather-bound journal. Bastian was a reader. He read everything relevant to a job, his preparation was meticulous and he was programmed by his early training to record everything.

‘Bastian!’ The man at the helm interrupted his train of thought. ‘Fünfzehn Minuten.’

‘Correct, make to the position and circle,’ Bastian replied as he opened the cabin door and nodded an affirmation to the young men who threw their cigarettes overboard before beginning the task of putting on their wet suits.

‘Grease, a lot of grease, the water is cold,’ Bastian instructed as the boat began tracking to the east. The two men lathered on a fatty layer which soon disappeared beneath their full-length wet suits.

The radio crackled to life with a female voice. ‘We have bait fish.’

Bastian checked his watch and placed a last entry into his journal before returning to the deck to observe the divers as they made their final preparations. He tapped his pipe on the rail. Hot ashes blew back across the deck. He turned his back on the young men and immediately refilled his pipe with tobacco.

The young men’s eyes followed Bastian’s every movement. Their wet suites were thick and heavy gauge, so they required heavy lead weights to counteract their buoyancy.

A few kilometres to the east, the small crescent-shaped bay containing Cheviot Beach opened southward onto Bass Strait’s difficult and windswept waters. The strait separated the island of Tasmania from the mainland with its cold, often turbulent waters.

Cheviot Beach sat within a restricted area surrounding the old Quarantine Station established near the Heads in 1852. There were fortifications on the western side and together with the quarantine station they were built to defend the Colony of Victoria against disease and foreign attack. It was also a military area that had become a safe refuge for resting VIPs, in particular the Australian prime minister, who loved his scuba diving.

It is early summer and the afternoon is cool. A westerly wind blows across the small cove. There are white caps on the waves which relentlessly come to shore and break hard. The waters are still extremely cold having been funnelled up from the Great Southern Ocean and in through Bass Strait with much of the water branching up from the Antarctic Circumpolar Current.

Unseen from the sandy shoreline of the beach, an attractive young woman is hidden within the scrub. She lies down scanning the rugged coast. She is camouflaged to match her surrounds. She studies the shoreline through powerful binoculars, lying on her side rather than her stomach as she is heavily pregnant.

A few hundred metres away, a small party has entered her field of view. They stop and stand looking out to sea. The observer immediately recognises a middle aged man with slicked back, silver grey hair. The woman uses her ungamely bricklike military field radio to report. ‘Prepare.’

On the beach, the man makes his way alone to a small rock bench where he sits and puts on his flippers. The woman recognises each member of the party that have come with him to the beach. Her face takes on a subtle smile when it appears that he is to be the only person to enter the water. ‘School consists only of snapper.’ She repeats softly into the radio. ‘The school consists only of snapper.’

On receiving the instruction, west of the cove, the trawler stops its circling and begins making its way towards the cove.

Bastian addresses the two divers. ‘The beacon is operational. You are to ensure that it is removed upon completion of your mission: remember, it is go—or it is not go. Do not proceed unless you are certain of success. We have contingency. It is confirmed only the Snapper will be in the water. Timing, gentlemen, is everything.’

He gave the divers a ‘thumbs-up’ and called out proudly, ‘Erfolg, success.’ The young men returned the gesture. They scrambled overboard, making their way along the towlines to a small metal grate, their diving platform; the vessel momentarily slowed waiting for them to strap on their underwater propulsion devices, cylinders harnessed to their air tanks.

On shore, preparing to enter the water, was Harold Holt, Australia’s seventeenth prime minister. Eight weeks ago, Holt had hosted the visit of US president Johnson and had espoused his ‘All the way with LBJ’ declaration. This was seen by some as almost an oath of allegiance. In the nation’s capital, Canberra, the rise in anti-war sentiment was deeply worrying the prime minister. It was known only to a few close confidants that, despite his declaration, Holt had hidden concerns about the consequences of the alliance. Holt had shared these concerns only with the closest of his advisors, but today he wished to unwind with his favourite pastime: spear fishing. Cheviot Beach was a place to give himself a break well away from the complexities of life in Canberra.

The woman hiding in the scrub focused her binoculars as the party on the beach remonstrated with Holt. ‘Hold,’ she whispered as she observed Holt’s companions try to dissuade him from entering the water. There was a short discussion, the woman Winton Gillespie, a friend of Holt, seemed to be the most insistent in trying to dissuade him from entering the surf. He ignored her before smiling reassuringly to his party and moved to the water.

‘Go,’ the spotter whispered into her radio.

Holt stood with the water up to his knees and examined the surf moving across the rocky platforms and reefs not far from the shore. It was almost high tide and much of the detail of what lay under the water was obscured from above.

Holt’s eyes momentarily followed the fishing trawler as it travelled slowly from the direction of Port Phillip Heads and moved to the East. He paid it little attention and concentrated on adjusting his diving weights. He placed his goggles and snorkel over his silver hair and let them rest on his forehead. He took a deep breath before taking another moment to study the turbulence and chop that covered the cove.

He faced his security, winked, and checked his spear gun. Holt was a strong swimmer and he had every reason to be extremely confident, and he was no stranger to these waters. This is why he so readily dismissed the concerns of his companions. Though it would be tiring, he was confident would be able to handle the currents and undertows that lay just off the shore.

His first port of call was a rocky platform where Weedy Sea Dragons floated with the currents and Leather Jackets and Parrot Fish were prolific. He tried to stand but struggled in the conditions before he made his way with the aid of a small undertow which took him alongside the weed beds and then out to the reef. He used the current to carry him to his favourite spot, a place where a few crayfish would always be found hiding beneath the rock shelves.

He blew out a little water that had collected in his snorkel and took a deep breath and disappeared from sight from the land-based observers. The visibility below the surface was limited but clear enough for him to continue on. He swam down deep to the seabed to peer under the rock shelves. He was near reaching the end of his breath, gazing into a rock cavity and grasping onto a ledge to stabilise himself, when a strange whirling noise began to rise in the pressured environment of his ears.

The prime minister couldn’t determine the direction or origin of the sound and paused in an effort to try to identify it. It was then that he felt a solid tug and pressure at the base of his left leg. His head jerked around more in surprise than in panic as he felt himself being pulled along and down towards the bottom.

The sound of the propulsion unit became louder as its operator looped a strap around Holt’s left calf. The whirl of the motor filled Holt’s ears as a second diver, similarly equipped, appeared and knocked the spear gun from his hand. Holt panicked as he struggled to surface. A hand grabbed at his weights and increased the drag towards the sea bottom. The struggle was short; salt water soon filled the struggling man’s lungs. The prime minister’s torso floated limply; his counter weights just heavy enough to start a slow descent towards the rocky sea floor.

Ashore, the fact that the prime minister had not surfaced created a confused rush to the water’s edge as security searched unsuccessfully for a sign that he had surfaced. In the undergrowth, the woman’s binoculars followed their every move. ‘The fish appears to be hooked,’ she said softly into her radio as she moved herself back slowly into the scrub. She removed her outer camouflage clothing and placed it, her radio and her binoculars into a beach bag under a beach towel. She slipped on her sunglasses and walked seemingly without a care along a rough foot track and away from the scene.

A few metres below the surface, Holt’s body was dragged out to sea to a second larger submersible. The divers attached Holt’s corpse to it before heading in the direction of the fishing vessel guided by a homing device. After a few minutes, the submersible stopped. One of the divers took his knife and cut a lock of hair, a trophy, which he placed in a small bag. He released Holt’s body. There were no marks on it. No signs of a struggle. This was an ideal point to release the corpse. The current would take it deep into Bass Strait. In regard to the success of the day, the question as to whether it was found or not was inconsequential.

The fishing trawler that Holt had paid so little attention to was now in line with the headland at the eastern end of the beach. It was disappearing from the line of sight behind the rocks. In the reports of the day, the trawler would not be mentioned, although reports of a Chinese submarine surfacing in the area would be taken up seriously by conspiracy theorists.

On the shoreline chaotic activity spread. This was irrelevant. The deed had been done.

The divers used their machines to make their way to beneath the trawler. They snap hooked onto a series of towlines before crawling a metre or so up to the surface and then along the seaward side of the trawler. The vessel neither changed speed or direction. The divers made their way aboard by scrabbling up a rope ladder.

‘Well Jonas?’ Bastian demanded as he drew back on his pipe which belched foul smelling smoke.

‘Perfekt,’ Jonas, the slightly older of the two divers, replied, using a poorly manufactured German accent and not his own natural Australian drawl.

The second diver pumped the air and yelled in sheer joy. He removed his headpiece to display his bleached blonde hair and a peeling sunburnt nose. ‘What a gasser man,’ he called out euphorically in a rich Californian voice. ‘Who takes care of the business—my man?’ he continued, grabbing his compatriot by the arm. Jonas shrugged his arm away from the young American and turned to the two older men who had broken out cigars.

‘The corpse?’ Bastian inquired, while at the same time watching with distain the antics of the blonde-haired American.

‘The current should be taking it out to sea; with neutral buoyancy and cold water, it won’t surface in under a week; it could be a thousand miles away by then,’ Jonas said calmly as he began removing his weights. He chuckled to himself. ‘Or he’s dinner for the creatures of the Good Lord’s ocean.’

Bastian emptied his pipe and placed it in his top pocket. He then bit off the end of his cigar and spat the small piece of tobacco overboard. ‘Excellent,’ he said, leaving the deck to use the boat’s radio.

The two divers struggled out of their wetsuits. Their skin was coloured white with a slight blue hue due to their exposure to the cold. Their fingers had become stiff and almost immobile. The blonde man stripped naked first. He towelled himself down before reaching into a bag and emerging with a marijuana joint and his cigarette lighter. He struggled to work the lighter with his cold fingers. ‘The song, man, we need to play the fucking song,’ he yelled as he kicked his wetsuit to the side and threw back a tarp that covered, among other things, a portable Ampex tape recorder.

‘Don’t touch that!’ Jonas yelled. ‘That’s mine shrunken dick!’

The blonde man ignored Jonas. He put down his joint and the lighter and opened the suitcase-sized machine and pressed the play button. The voice of Tom Jones emerged, pounding out a song from the single speaker. It was the theme song from the James’ Bond film ‘Thunderball’.

The naked man gyrated to the powerful beat, singing discordantly along, ‘Any woman he wants he’ll get,’ before screaming out ‘Fucking inspirational!’ as he thrust his cold-affected genitals in Jonas’ direction and gave him the finger.

Bastian opened the small cabin door and returned to the deck. His eyes found Jonas. ‘We need to tie our shoe,’ he said calmly as the naked man, who had finally managed to light his smoke, drew back heavily on the joint while continuing to sway to the beat of the music.

Jonas had peeled his own wet suit down to his waste. ‘Your hand,’ Bastian demanded of Jonas, who gave him his hand, palm up. Bastian placed his fingers on Jonas’ wrist in order to find his Ulnar artery and pulse. This he monitored for perhaps twenty seconds before handing Jonas a gun. It was large calibre and modified. Jonas needed no further instruction and pointed it at the other diver who had now returned his attention to the other men on the deck. He dropped his smoke in surprise. ‘It’s only a fucking tape recorder man!’ he said bewildered as he lifted his hands. A shot rang out as a bullet penetrated the man’s left temple and the far side of his skull exploded. Jonas stood emotionless, coldly examining the dead man.

The blonde man dropped to the timber deck. His body fell on the tape player causing one side of the spool to stop, sending the tape cascading onto the deck. Bastian knelt down beside his naked body and reached over it to turn off the machine.

Jonas said quietly, ‘He better not have broken it.’

‘Or what? Are you going to kill him again?’ The older man laughed cynically as he placed his hand on the dead man’s buttock which he squeezed. He kissed the end of the fingers on his own right hand before placing them on the dead man’s back. ‘He had an exquisite skill set. This is a waste in so many ways.’ Bastian stood ‘. . .but he would never have been able to remain silent; it was not in his nature,’ he said as he extended the palm of his hand towards Jonas. ‘The gun please.’

Bastian took the gun from Jonas and once again he felt for his pulse. He retained Jonas’ arm as the man at the helm came out and placed a cigar in his mouth. He leant against the cabin door, observing.

‘Your pulse is still lazy. This comes easy for you boy,’ Bastian said as he nodded to the other man who was lighting his own cigar. Bastian slowly lifted the gun and pointed it between Jonas’ eyes. He continued to check Jonas’ pulse. ‘With you, I have no such qualms; you have a future, boy. Now clean up your mess,’ he said, returning the gun to his hip, placing it on the inside of his belt.

‘My friend here will be displeased with you. He was planning to use that…’ Bastian said pointing to the young man on the ground, ‘. . .before he was… relieved of his life.’

‘Success code transmitted.’ The man smoking the cigar called across.

As Jonas weighed down the body on the deck, in a stark office in Parliament House Canberra, two men hurried. They walked with purpose through King’s Hall and to the Northern Wing of the complex. The Prime Ministerial Offices were unlocked. It was a Sunday afternoon and the building was almost empty. The men carried with them a briefcase. Inside the briefcase were a set of duplicate papers with some alterations and different annotations that had been previously made by the prime minister. The annotations appeared to be in the PM’s own hand. Within a few minutes, the documents, with the stamp of ASIS, the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, had been exchanged.

CHAPTER 2

Lasseter

July 19th, 1930

Stuart is a town about as far away from the ocean as a town can be. In mid winter, Stuart’s desert climate is dry and warm during the day, but it can be bitterly cold at night. The wind is gusting as the tip of a strong cold front passes to the south. Dry air rushing between the pressure systems stirs up the red dust of the iron rich sandy soil. The dust is fine, fine enough to cling to clothes and hair and to penetrate into the corner of the eyes.

The Stuart Railway Station with its newly completed buildings sits uncomfortably as if stolen from a city and dumped, out of context, on the empty landscape. The land around the railhead and terminus is trampled, unloved and is rapidly turning to dust as a response to constant human and animal traffic. The dust adds to a sense of despair, which lingers in the air for some, but is a symbol of hope for others.

The light levels are high, the azure sky contrasts the red land. In the distance, the purple hue of the sandstone MacDonnell Range’s shimmers as it develops with the warming day as the scented oils from the eucalypts become dispersed into the atmosphere and scatter the sun’s light. There is chaos and a sense of uncertainty as life passes in slow motion, except that is, for the newly arrived.

A few miles to the northeast, the Overland Telegraph Line, which joins Adelaide to Darwin, has a repeater base. The old trees surrounding the telegraph station at the Alice Springs can be seen from the emerging settlement that is growing around the railway station. Over a hundred whites now live permanently here.

The Reverend John Flynn’s nursing hostel and a Catholic Church have joined the precinct of new stone government buildings. These isolated buildings give a glimpse into the future of the infant town that will soon be named after the springs. The Arrernte-speaking natives have begun a slow drift into the township. The effect of disease, alcohol, and evangelical Christianity have changed many to fringe dwellers who have become dependent on handouts as their culture fades, systematically eliminated by a seemingly amoral invader.

As for permanent accommodation and hotel facilities, they are limited, but these are supported by temporary ramshackle venues for food and grog that have been set up by entrepreneurs. Some of the hosts have dubious pasts, while others have travelled to the frontier out of necessity. This country, though on the edge of civilisation, shares the worldwide recession.

For the travellers, there are small tents with food: outback cafes. The proprietors of one of these food venues are an old Japanese couple who had originally immigrated to the Torres Strait as pearl divers. The initial success of the Japanese in the Strait had brought down the wrath of the less successful white pearlers, who argued successfully to the Queensland Government, that Asians should be stripped of the right to own luggers. Virtually penniless, the couple drifted south and followed the men who sought gold in the inland.

The couple were now in their sixties and operated the ‘Best Chinese and Australian Food’ cafe with their son and daughter-in-law, who was also of Japanese parentage. Here in the outback, these Japanese offered the ‘Best Chinese’ food which had become largely bully beef, but the sign remained. The whites found it difficult, or just didn’t care to distinguish the Japanese family from the many Chinese who had settled in the area after the Arltunga gold fields to the north had closed. They called them ‘slanty eyes, yellow perils, or the ching chongs’; being Chinese or Japanese, it didn’t matter; the epicanthic folds in the corner of their eyes were enough to ensure that they would be outcasts not only by consensus, but by law. The Immigration Restriction Act of 1901 enacted the ‘White Australia Policy’ which took effect upon Federation, so the couple, their children and grandchild survived on the fringes of legitimate society, tolerated in much the same way as were the Afghan Cameleers with whom they shared the camp.

However, they had fared much better than the local aboriginal population.

At the entrance of their tent, a young girl stands; she is immaculately dressed in a navy blue skirt. She shares the epicanthic folds of her race. Her name is Chika, she is 8 years old and hides behind the fly to the entrance of the tent looking out on a new round of excitement. The population of the town has been swollen by ‘The Central Australian Gold Expedition’ which has set up camp not far from the Railhead. A twin winged Gypsy Moth named the ‘Golden Quest’ sits as a mechanical wonder at the rear of the encampment.

Chika had never seen an aircraft before and she cannot take her eyes off the marvel as she tries to summon the courage to go out and to take a closer look; but the expedition’s camp is rough and her parents have forbade her to wander alone through it. She watches as the Gypsy Moth is being inspected and refuelled by its pilot who is ignoring the man dressed in a khaki suit who is berating him. Chika knows the man in the suit only as ‘boss’ and she has decided that she doesn’t like him. He made her feel uncomfortable in the way that he would look her up and down and the way that he spoke to her mother when he had come in for a meal.

‘Gōman’na’ she whispered to herself mimicking her mother’s assessment of the man as arrogant.

It was now well after noon. The Afghan Cameleers are kneeling on their prayer mats for the Dhuhr prayer. Chika has always liked to watch them pray. She had asked these men about when they pray, and she knew that now was the time of the day that the shadow of a man is twice its own height. Her own family prayed too, but differently. The fact that these men prayed gave her reassurance about their nature. She liked these men who lived with the camels.

‘Boss’ walked towards her between the aircraft and the family tent. To where the cameleers were praying. Boss made no allowance for the men who were on their knees. ‘Heathen bastards,’ he called loudly as he walked between them. He stopped in the their centre and hit his pipe on his heal, spreading its ash. The ash caught in the wind and blew onto one of the praying men. ‘Heathen Bastards,’ he repeated before heading over to one of the two expedition trucks; a Thorneycroft truck, a heavy six-wheeled vehicle weighing some two and a half tons. The ‘Central Australian Gold Expedition’ motto was prominently painted on its side. He reached into it to get his tobacco pouch and begins to fill his pipe. The two trucks’ wooden trays are loaded heavily with supplies. The livestock, camels, horses, sheep, and cattle are tethered and relaxed as their drivers and handlers complete their prayers in the afternoon sun.

‘You be careful of him young one,’ came a voice from behind her.

Chika turned. ‘I don’t like that man, Mr Harold,’ she said, turning to the cafe’s only customer who was sitting alone with a drink of tea, and she smiled. ‘He not nice man like you.’ Mr Harold holds up his cup, as if in a toast, to the fine-boned little girl and then returns to his thoughts.

To the south of the railhead, the MacDonnell Ranges are cut through by the spasmodically flowing Todd River. The railway had taken advantage of this geology and the break in the East to West running mountain range to build their track through the Heavitree Gap.

Chika’s face began to light up, the rumours were true. She could just hear it. It was a drone of a distant engine coming from the direction of the Gap. ‘Another plane! Another plane!’ she squealed and jumped with delight and clapped her hands together. ‘Mummy, another plane!’ She left the security of the tent and scanned the sky above the ‘Gap’. There it was, barely visible but she could see it. It was a bi-plane; an Australian-built Genairco Moth. The young girl walked out into the sunlight and covered her face as if saluting. As the aircraft came closer, Chika could just make out its two occupants, young men seated in open cockpits, with the passenger sitting forward of the pilot.

Chika’s mother, who was a tiny, thin-framed woman, was halfway through pouring out a large pot of soup into smaller vessels when Mr Harold rose. ‘I’ll take her out to see it land if that’s alright by you Mrs Minami?’

‘Please,’ she replied.

Chika, upon hearing the conversation, ran to grab the man’s extended hand. The Genairco banked to the left and began to circle the railway station area. In this, the golden age of aviation, the sight and the sound of the aircraft drew everyone out of their tents and from the town’s stone buildings. The pilot buzzed low over the camp sending the tethered animals into a frenzy. The cameleers having finished their prayers raced out to control their panicking beasts and threw their arms into the air angrily remonstrating with the two men skylarking above them.

Chika continued to hold Mr Harold’s hand, dragging him towards an area to the north of the expedition’s campsite. The landing strip was nothing more than a moderately flat stretch of plain with the vegetation and larger rocks removed. The Genairco slowed and aligned itself with the makeshift runway. The cross-wind drifted the machine across and towards the camp. The aircraft bounced wildly and lurched about as its wheels touched down, one, then the other. The single prop generated a massive cloud of dust which drifted with the breeze across the camp. The spluttering roar of the reducing engine startled the camels and the other livestock into more kicking and frenzied rearing as the animals fought against their tethers.

The plane taxied to a stop about fifty metres from the expedition’s Gypsy Moth to the curses of the Afghan livestock attendants, and the cheers of the waiting crowd. The stuttering motor became silent as the shiny wooden prop stalled in a near vertical position. The crowd, possibly numbering a hundred, pressed forward.

The two young men clambered from the aircraft and out onto the wing. They jumped to the ground with their faces covered by large goggles. Each was donned out in a full-brown leather flight jacket with a matching cap and a long white scarf. To Chika, they looked very much mythical aviators; two gods of the heavens out of the pages of a Boy’s Life magazine. The shine and finish of their new leather outfits, however, suggested that they were but novices to the game of aviation. The pilot flung his left arm aloft in a melodramatic gesture.

‘Ya bloody drongo. Do ya reckon the sun shines out of yer arse? Wacka!’ Boss screamed as he pushed an old bicycle up through the milling crowd. His khaki suit was new and freshly pressed but his old leather hat with its extra wide brim had seen far better days. Boss conveyed a sense of authority and he handed his bicycle to one of the crowd to hold. He stepped forward and said drolly, ‘So just who would you two galahs be?’ He pointed to the animal handlers who were slowly getting their charges under control. ‘I’d stay away from those blokes for a while; they’ll have ya guts for garters Sonny Jim.’

The young pilot held out his hand. ‘The name’s James Wheeler. I’m the press,’ he said with a confident, cheeky, grin covering his face. Boss didn’t return the handshake but instead he walked over to the aircraft, running his hand over its highly lacquered prop.

‘Of course you are,’ Boss said taking out his pipe from his top pocket and tapping it on the prop to loosen the burnt tobacco. ‘And ya offsider?’ he said pointing to the passenger who was passing down a few bags, two tripods, and cameras, which were both Kodak Eastman’s with bellows and fitted with f6.3 lenses, to men from the crowd.

‘That is my mate Robbo; he’s my cameraman,’ Wheeler said whilst maintaining the enthusiastic smile. He added, ‘Commissioned by the Western Australian newspaper to report on the travels and exploits of the Central Australian Gold Expedition.’

‘Is that so?’ Boss said, sounding unconvinced, as he searched the ground and found a small twig which he used to remove some more of the ash from his pipe. ‘You’re on the wrong train, mate. We don’t want bloody newspapermen here. This is a private syndicate.’

Wheeler opened his flying jacket and produced a folded piece of official-looking paper. ‘I’m a shareholder, two hundred pounds,’ he said as he held the open document in front of the man who barely glanced at it. ‘Now I’ve picked ya Sonny Jim. Ya daddy owns the paper.’ Boss laughed. ‘Good-o! You’re a rich boy,’ he returned to tapping his pipe on the prop clearing its final ash. He reached into his pocket for his pouch of pipe tobacco. ‘Is that piece of paper supposed to impress me?’

‘Who would you be?’ Wheeler asked.

‘Name’s Fred Blakeley. You can just stay out of me way. You’re on your Pat Malone out here mate, we ain’t got no room for hangers on.’ James recognised the man’s name as that of the expedition leader. He started to fold up the syndicate certificate but remained undeterred. ‘So where would I find Mr Lasseter then?’ he asked.

Blakeley lit a match and drew its flame deep into the tobacco in his pipe. ‘That certificate will get you one piece of information. You see the little ching chong over there holding the white fella’s hand? That’ll be the morbid bastard with her.’ Blakely sneered. ‘What type of a man likes coolie’s?’ he turned and walked away to reclaim his bicycle. ‘Or maybe its little girls he likes?’ He collected his bicycle and rode off.

Robbo had finally unpacked the gear without any help from James. ‘Thanks mate,’ he said sarcastically as he descended to the ground from the plane for the last time. ‘Where to?’

‘Take a punt, try over there,’ James said pointing to a stone building which looked like it might be accommodation in the distance. ‘I’ve got to strike while the iron’s hot mate.’ He reached into his jacket and counted out five pounds in single notes. ‘Pay these blokes who are standing around scratching their backsides and book us in somewhere for the night.’ James turned and found Lasseter in the quickly dissipating crowd. He was elated about the prospect of meeting the controversial figure.

It was in 1929, while completing the last year of his geology degree in London, that James heard the news of Lasseter’s extraordinary claims. Claims of discovering a gold bearing reef with nuggets as ‘thick as plums in a pudding’ when they were first published in his father’s newspaper. James remembered opening packages from home and sitting and reading the stories over a pint. His imagination was fired; now there he was a few feet away, Harold Bell Lasseter.

James was the son of a wealthy pastoralist who held vast swathes of land in southern Western Australia. His father had made his fortune selling bully beef to the army during the Great War and had used this newly generated wealth to purchase majority holdings in a number of companies that controlled much of the press and the expanding radio networks in both the eastern and western states of the Commonwealth. While James was much loved by his father, his thirst for adventure, his wanderlust, and his naivety was the cause of much concern for its patriarch as he tried to consolidate his dynasty.

The depression had hit hard and when James returned from his studies and asked his father for the substantial sum of two hundred pounds to buy into the expedition syndicate, he found that the money came with a set of conditions. James would double as the newspaper’s reporter and would have to earn his money. His father hoped that the failure of the expedition and the unmasking of a charlatan would educate his lad in the ways of the world.

James jogged across to Lasseter who didn’t seem quite as heavy set as he appeared in his photographs. Chika pulled on Lasseter’s arm in excitement. This was a real pilot coming her way. Lasseter was more reserved and looked upon James suspiciously. ‘James Wheeler, the Western Australian. I was wondering if I could have a word,’ he said as he clumsily unfolded his share certificate. ‘. . .and I’m a share holder in this little venture,’ he added with a hopeful note.

Lasseter was a thick set man with dark slicked back hair. His facial expression was almost deadpan and he seemed totally unimpressed with the young newspaperman. He was about to turn away when Chika pulled hard on his arm. ‘Can we see his plane? Please Mr Harold.’

Lasseter glanced down at the young girl. Her brown clear eyes had gotten to him from the first time she had greeted him with warmth at the family cafe. For a lonely man, she had made a difference. He returned a gentle smile. ‘I don’t see my kids much these days,’ he said to Wheeler. ‘I’ll tell you what; let the girl sit in the aeroplane and you’ve got five minutes.’

Chika’s parents had by now made their way out to look at the Genairco. ‘Your parents?’ James asked the little girl who nodded quickly a few times before she ran towards them with an excited smile. ‘That works for me,’ Wheeler replied.

He called across to Robbo. ‘Whoa there mate! Can you set up for a shot over by the plane?’

‘You could have told me that a few minutes ago,’ the photographer complained as he hunched his shoulders before yelling out to the men carrying the gear away. They were now well over a hundred yards further afield and heading quickly into the distance.

‘Make up your bloody mind mate,’ one of the bearers called back from the rag tag group. Robbo held up another pound note high in the air as the group reluctantly turned. James lifted up Chika and sat her in the pilot’s seat. Chika’s parents and Lasseter stood either side of him as Robbo organised the shot.

‘Human interest,’ James said to Robbo. ‘The people in the camp are a story in themselves,’ Lasseter’s mood changed rapidly as Robbo took a half-dozen photographs.

‘Keep going,’ James called. ‘It’s the old man’s money,’ as Lasseter posed for a number of photographs before declaring enough was enough. Chika had begun to fidget and attempted to crawl out along the biplane’s wing. ‘At five,’ Lasseter pronounced as he left. He pointed to the Japanese family’s tent. ‘The press can buy me supper.’

Robbo found overpriced accommodation and the two unpacked. The fresh faced newspaper men returned to meet Lasseter at the required time. Inside the canvas tent were placed a half-dozen roughly constructed wooded tables placed haphazardly around the sides. A number of men, each looking more bored than the next, sat drinking beers that looked both flat and warm. There was little conversation.

Chika’s mother was adding small chips of wood to the small fire below a vat of boiling water with mutton cooking in it. It was one of three large pots simmering away. Lasseter sat alone at a table and nodded his greeting to James as he entered. Robbo’s face turned to despair as he viewed the warm flat beers. ‘Looks like it might be sherry’s all around,’ he said as he noted that there was only the limited choice, homemade beer or sherry.

James sat down across from Lasseter who didn’t speak. He was joined by his mate who carried over three large Sherries. Robbo sniffed at them. ‘These are headaches in waiting,’ he said as he placed the drinks on the table. Lasseter pushed his away. ‘I’ll have a tea. I don’t touch alcohol.’ James called across to Chika’s grandmother who was helping with preparations. ‘Can we have a pot of tea please?’ James tasted his sherry and moved the fluid around in his mouth. ‘It’s better than camel’s piss,’ he said to Robbo grinning as if he was in pain.

James decided to sit silently. He would wait for Lasseter to speak. The fifty thousand pounds that the ‘Central Australian Gold Expedition’ had cost was organised by using union funds and was based on this dubious man’s promise. James wanted Lasseter to be the real thing, but his father was insistent that Lasseter was no more than a mere charlatan and not a very good one at that. His father’s words entered James’ head. ‘Lasseter is a man cashing in on the hopes of a generation who are caught in a depression. Like a drowning man, people will grab at anything if they are desperate enough.’

Chika’s mother bowed slightly as she placed a ceramic tea pot and china cup in front of Lasseter. James couldn’t help but notice that her eyes kept darting to the open side of the tent and out to the men sitting around outside who were yelling and making rowdy conversation. The noise from the front of the tent increased, gaining the attention of the bored men sitting around the other tables causing them to stand up and to make their way outside.

‘Every damn night,’ Lasseter said ruefully. ‘The grog brings out the evil. . .’

James found his notebook and opened it and said ‘You’re a Mormon, Mr Lasseter; we don’t see many of your kind out this way.’ Lasseter was becoming agitated. He lifted the flap of the tent and looked outside in the direction of the commotion. A number of the expedition’s crew were taunting a pair of emaciated aboriginal women with a bottle of grog; the same poor-quality sherry that Robbo and James were drinking. The man holding the bottle aloft had his penis exposed. He was gesturing to one of the women to mouth it much to the approval of the mocking audience.

Waves of laughter emanated from another group of men who were sitting on the back of the expedition trucks. Chika’s mother closed the tent’s fly, but the cruel laughter and cheers made her suspect that the women, were indeed, earning their grog.

Lasseter’s face had turned red. ‘The Curse of Ham,’ he said loudly. ‘Isn’t that enough?’ He looked to the heavens. ‘Knowledge becomes evil if the aim be not virtuous. I have thought long and hard on this.’

Lasseter’s focus seemed to drift before his thoughts returned to what was happening outside. ‘Long and hard,’ he repeated. He pushed the table away and one of the sherries spilt and another wobbled, forcing Robbo to reach for it and save its contents. The angry man strode quickly and threw back the flap of the tent. James followed suit a few seconds later, but the flap had dropped and blocked his view. There were the sounds of a short altercation which was over before James could see what had occurred.

An expedition member with an obviously still erect penis lay flat on his back on the ground with his pants half way to his knees. Lasseter was being restrained by two other men, while the two aboriginal women were running from the scene with the sherry bottle in hand. Lasseter was disorientated and he was repeating the phrase ‘Long and hard’ over and over again, which confused the laughing audience considering the sight before them.

Two men held the powerfully built Lasseter while his dazed opponent lay on the ground trying to drag up his pants. The other men roared with laughter. Embarrassed, the man on the ground displayed his loss of desire drawing some derogatory remarks from the crowd.

James looked to his side. Chika had made her way out there with him. ‘You shouldn’t be looking.’ James said trying to turn her around. ‘You think I not see a man before,’ she said quietly. James hoped that she did not mean what he thought she did. She added, ‘Nobody will hurt Mr Harold. They think he will lead them to the treasure.’

CHAPTER 3

River Bed

Dawn, July 30th, 1930

James Wheeler set his camera upon its tripod to capture a full day of activity around the camp. The expedition was due to leave the next morning. James had struck up a conversation with Errol Coote, the pilot of the expedition’s Gypsy Moth. Coote seemed a likable fellow who was upbeat about the adventure, despite having some reservations about where he would be able to land or take off. Coote pointed in the direction of the heavy six-wheeled Thorneycroft truck, saying, ‘These buggers haven’t a hope in hell of getting that thing through the desert but I’ll find a place to land.’ Coote in a way was cut from the same cloth as many of the others that made up the eclectic bunch that were the expedition. He was university trained and had studied sociology, psychology, and criminology.

James had done his homework. Over a drink James asked Coote questions about his life, about his inauspicious military career. Why, for example, did he provide false personal details on his enlistment form? And why did he claim that he was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, and not Australia. Coote been court marshalled and imprisoned in England. James wanted to know how he turned his life around to become a journalist with the Sydney Sun and, in 1929, to be awarded the first Australian Gold Medal for journalism. Coote was easy to talk to and was relaxed with James, who after all was a fellow journalist and pilot. Coote claimed that he knew James’ father well and so he was cordial to the young journalist but not forthcoming. The expedition’s pilot would not proceed with an interview until James produced a five-pound note, nor would he be photographed