Hills End (7 page)

He heard the sharp intake of Miss Godwin's breath close to his ear, heard the squeal from Harvey and the gasp from Paul.

‘Wait!'

Miss Godwin took the torch from Adrian and directed it across the floor of the cave to a ledge. There were many bones, huge bones, and kangaroo skulls twice as large as any they had ever seen, and on the walls beyond were red hands and black hands and white hands and drawings of animals and devil men.

Miss Godwin sighed, a deep, shuddering sigh, and Gussie cried out, and Paul was so ashamed he wished the ground would open up and swallow him.

Adrian was panting in wonderment, in amazement, in absolute elation. They were here. The drawings
were
here. And they'd called him a liar. That prim and proper Paul had called him a liar and he wasn't a liar at all.

‘I'm sorry, Adrian,' Paul murmured. ‘Golly, I am sorry!'

Adrian couldn't trust himself to speak, and neither could Miss Godwin. She was too overcome even to consider that Paul's remark confirmed Frank Tobias's story and that all her fears as to the real motives of the children were without foundation.

Frances, strangely, was a little saddened. She had believed Adrian yet she was sorry that Paul had been proved wrong—and Gussie was all confused. She had been so sure that Adrian had been lying. So very, very sure, because Paul had been so sure.

Suddenly all were talking at once, and Miss Godwin had to raise her voice to a shout. ‘Be quiet!'

She waited a few moments. ‘That's better. That's very much better. Now, no one is to touch a single thing. Before we make any examination I want to photograph everything just as we find it…Adrian, this is the most wonderful, wonderful discovery. My only regret is that I didn't come a week ago. Imagine it, children—Hills End will be famous. We'll have anthropologists coming here. Great scholars from all over the world. Children, children, this is the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to us. Oh dear, I—I'm really so excited. I'm all of a flutter. Adrian, my boy.' She thrust her arm round him and hugged him tight. ‘Why didn't you tell us about the bones, too? Didn't you think they were important? They're the bones of the giant kangaroo—and the diprotodon, I think. Adrian, Adrian, these animals have been extinct for tens of thousands—perhaps hundreds of thousands of years…Goodness me, I'm all of a flutter! I—I cannot believe my eyes. I'm going to wake up in a minute. Oh dear, dear, dear!'

‘You won't wake up, Miss Godwin,' said Paul. ‘It's real. Really and truly real.'

She sighed again, a shivering and breathless sigh. ‘Take the torch, Paul. Shine it on my haversack. I—I must get my things.'

She was trembling so much she could hardly undo the straps and she took out her camera and her tripod and her flashlight fittings, and suddenly heard the thunderclaps again and felt the cold air that was rapidly expelling the warmth from the caves.

She looked up with a troubled frown and slowly stood erect, leaving her precious equipment at her feet. ‘First of all,' she said, ‘I think we'd better take a look at the weather. We mustn't lose our sense of proportion. These drawings will be here tomorrow—next week—they'll remain. We must take a look at the weather.'

‘
Now
, miss?'

‘Certainly, Adrian. But we must make sure that we don't lose our cave. It took a long while to find it, even though you were sure you knew where it was. Now, what shall we do?'

‘I'll go, miss,' said Paul. ‘I said before it would be all right.'

‘No. We stay together. While you're with me you're my responsibility.' She paused then and could feel something like a cold hand touching her. There was Christopher—Butch—out there, somewhere in the storm. If it were a storm. It might only be sound and harmless fury. There had been no warning of a storm. This was some trick of the weather. Some local disturbance…‘Now what shall we do? Of course, what we want is a ball of string. That's it. A ball of string. Always be prepared, children. That's the division between the foolish and the wise.'

She took the ball of string from her haversack, tied the loose end round a heavy stone, and directed Paul to proceed in front with the torch while she laid out the string behind her.

So they came again towards the opening, towards a world of frightening sound and vivid lightning flashes, of bitter cold, of violent wind, of torrential rain and hailstones. The hailstones struck the ledge and bounced and were as big as golfballs. They couldn't approach the opening. They had to stop well back, clear of showering ice and wind-driven rain. The world beyond was like a block of frosted glass—water, ice, and wind in a mass through which they could not see.

That cold feeling that had reached for Miss Godwin crept through her until she was filled with the chill of horror. She clenched her hands tightly and began to pray, saying nothing aloud, but pleading in silence. This wasn't a storm. It was a calamity. One hailstone alone could kill the unsheltered boy if his head were unprotected.

Someone was pulling on her arm. It was Gussie, screaming at the top of her voice, trying to make herself heard above the roar.

‘Butch! Butch! Butch! Butch!'

‘Yes, dear. Yes, dear.'

Miss Godwin did not know what to do.

 

When the rain began Frank Tobias was caught at the far end of the township, at Rickard's place, trying to drive the cows to the barn. The calves and the bull he had to forget. They had to care for themselves. But the cows in milk were the providers for everyone in the town, for the babies and the children. They were almost as precious to the town as human life itself. He couldn't drive them to the barn. They wouldn't go. In the evening at milking time they made their way of their own accord. In the middle of the day they dodged him and he couldn't catch them. He didn't know them by name. They didn't trust him.

The heavens split apart and rain and hail fell from the clouds. A mighty wind roared up the valley, and sheets of iron were blasted from rooftops. Chimneys collapsed. Outbuildings vanished. Trees split like sticks, and Frank Tobias couldn't reach shelter. He couldn't stand up. He was beaten into the ground. Again and again he tried to run. Again and again he was stunned and driven back to the earth. He couldn't see in any direction for more than twenty yards. He couldn't draw a breath without pain. Crashing ice and water were as near to solid as they could be. ‘It's the end of the world,' he kept telling himself. ‘The end of the world. The end of the world…'

Then he knew that he must have crawled to a ditch and was rolling into it, and that was the last that poor Frank ever knew. As he rolled a huge ball of ice struck his unshielded temple.

He slid into the ditch, face downwards, and already water was flowing through it, towards the river.

 

* * *

 

Butch had curled himself into a ball of fat, legs tucked up, face to the rock, elbows held in, chin on chest, and with his schoolbag placed as a shield across the nape of his neck and held in place by two pudgy, frozen hands.

Butch thought he was going to die and he was too frightened to think of anything else. He merely existed and waited and felt the bitter contact of ice piling up against his back. He didn't dare take a peep. He kept his eyes tightly closed and tried to lock himself up in safety behind a wall of darkness. Butch did not realize that he was a very lucky young man. The rock that had shaded him from the midday sun now formed for him the line of defence that saved his life. He was in the open on the rock pan, where no trees could fall, where no sheets of iron or debris could whistle murderously through the air, and where the killer ice could not strike him before first hitting the ground.

His only danger was the danger he could feel but could not see. The hailstones were piling up against him, higher and higher. He might be buried alive in ice before he realized it.

 

In the cave Miss Elaine Godwin endeavoured to face the problem of the immediate future. She was very frightened and it was difficult for her to consider her peril reasonably. She tried to argue that there was nothing she could do for Christopher, that he would have to look after himself, but poor Christopher was so slow-witted. He was a dear boy, but so very, very dull. He wouldn't have sense enough to do the right thing. It was even possible that the poor child was scrambling up the bluff now, or he could be lying unconscious in the open in a deepening pool of water, or he could be bleeding to death from the savage wounds inflicted by ice. More than any other child at present in her care this one boy was her responsibility. She had been happy enough to leave him behind because she hadn't wanted him to climb the bluff at all. When he had called she had been going to order him to wait at the bottom. Christopher, so dull, was also so clumsy. But he was obedient and courteous and gentle. If he had been ordered to stay at the bottom he would not have argued. It was his simple trust in her, so often revealed in the past, that seemed to reach out from the wildness beyond the cave seeking the friendship and comfort of her hand.

But how could she go to him? She could not descend the bluff. She'd be blinded by water and ice, even blown from the rock-face. She'd be dead before she got to the bottom, dead before her announcement of the wonder of these caves went out to the world. It was too much to ask of any woman, to throw her life away in the frail chance that she might help a slow-witted, usually unwashed, and greedy boy.

But beside her was Gussie, that emotional little creature, still tugging on her sleeve, ‘Butch! Butch! Butch!'

‘Yes, dear. Yes, dear.'

‘You shouldn't have left him behind, Miss Godwin. You should have made him come.'

‘Shut up, Gussie,' roared Paul, shaking her. ‘That's not fair. It's not Miss Godwin's fault. No one could do anything out there. Not even a man.'

‘I bet Butch's father would. He'd go. And I'd go, too, if I was strong enough. And stop shaking me. And stop shouting at me. You're a scaredy-cat. That's what you are. You're big enough, even if Miss Godwin isn't.'

‘Augusta,' cried the schoolmistress angrily, ‘you are not to address your brother like that. And not one of you is to leave this cave until the storm is over. I absolutely forbid any move towards the entrance. You're to get back out of the wind and the wet. I've enough worry without the rest of you catching chills.' Exhausted by the effort of making herself heard and by her distress, she waved them back inside.

Adrian yelled at her, ‘You're coming, too, Miss Godwin?'

She shook her head. ‘On your honours,' she screamed. ‘No one to leave. Now
go!
'

She sat where she was, worn out, hoarse, her throat raw, her head ringing, but she summoned enough strength to gesture angrily at them, once again, and she saw them retreat into the caves and she saw the torch come on again in Paul's hand, and then they were gone from her sight.

She surrendered then to a private little weep. When she looked up the hail had stopped but the rain fell in an unbroken torrent.

 

At the conclusion of the National News at 12.40, Eastern Time, an additional item was handed to the news reader in the air-conditioned comfort of a studio more than a thousand miles from Hills End.

The news reader was a pleasant young man, but he could not be expected to be disturbed by a report of a storm. After all, with equal calm, he had broadcast stories of disasters and wars. As far as he was concerned, items of news were words on paper that he was required to read aloud, in exchange for his pay envelope at the end of the week. Another storm was just another storm.

So he read it and this is what he said:

‘A severe cyclonic storm, accompanied by hurricane-force winds and torrential hail and rain, is cutting an arc of destruction and chaos sixty miles wide through the north country, causing widespread power failures and disruption of radio and telephone communications. Numerous country centres are isolated, roads are impassable and rivers are rising rapidly. In the heavily timbered region of the Stanley Ranges, where the storm appears to have struck with its greatest violence, fears are held for the safety of approximately ninety men, women and children, the entire population of the mill town of Hills End. These people are travelling over a dangerous mountain road to the annual Picnic Race Meeting at Stanley. The party was one hour overdue when telephone communication with Stanley was cut off. It is believed that a breakdown of one of the cars or trucks concerned must have caused the delay which has left these people at the mercy of the storm.

‘Detailed gale warnings and flood warnings for the region will be issued in the weather report that follows this bulletin.'

 

Miss Godwin moved cautiously from the deep shelter of the entrance cave to the fury of the ledge. In a few moments her tough bush clothes were soaked and she was shivering uncontrollably.

She was so terribly afraid, so awed by the violence, so perturbed that clear sunshine and this awful tempest could come from one sky, could exist in one world side by side, only a few hours or a few miles apart.

She didn't walk into the storm, she crawled into it, because she feared she would be swept from her feet to the horrible rocks far beneath. She felt like a poor, bewildered heathen, crawling into the presence of the god of thunder; yet deep inside her, so deep that for the moment she couldn't summon from it the strength she needed, was the spark of her faith in the good God who was with His people when they needed Him. She didn't believe in running to God for every little thing, because He had given her a mind and a body equal to most of her problems. She thanked Him for what he had given her, but rarely asked for more.

She had prayed several times this day in her fear, but now she couldn't. There was a barrier in her mind and it was a barrier of self-pity. She was sorry for herself; she was angry; she was resentful.