“I ought to go to her. To Mum. It ought to be me with her.”
“David will cope.”
“It ought to be me,” Clive repeated, but made no move.
Presently he said, “It can’t be left there.”
“David will cope,” Solomon repeated. It sounded like a slogan.
“David can’t walk on the troubled waters,” Clive returned on a note of hysteria. He began to laugh.
“Shut up, for God’s sake.”
“Sorry. I can’t help it. It’s so grotesque.”
“Listen.”
Voices could be heard, the snap of twigs broken underfoot and the thud of boots on soft ground. Into the clearing walked four men in single file. They had packs on their backs and guns under their arms and an air of fitting into their landscape. One was bearded, two clean-shaven, and the last had a couple of days’ growth. When they saw Solomon and Clive they all stopped.
“Hullo, there! Good morning to you,” said the leader. “We saw your tents.” He had an English voice. His clothes, well-worn, had a distinctive look which they would have retained if they had been in rags.
Solomon and Clive made some sort of response. The man looked hard at them. “Hope you don’t mind if we walk through your camp,” he said. “We’ve been deer-stalking up at the head of Welshman’s Creek but looked like getting drowned. So we’ve walked out.”
Solomon said. “He’s—we’ve both had a shock.”
Clive slid to the ground and sat doubled up, his face on his arms.
The second man went to him. The first said, “If it’s illness—I mean, this is Dr. Mark, if we can do anything.”
Solomon said, “I’ll tell you.” And did.
They did not exclaim or overreact. The least talkative of them, the one with the incipient beard, seemed to be regarded by the others as some sort of authority and it turned out, subsequently, that he was their guide: Bob Johnson, a high-country man. When Solomon had finished, this Bob, with a slight jerk of his head, invited him to move away. The doctor had sat down beside Clive, but the others formed a sort of conclave round Solomon, out of Clive’s hearing.
“What about it, Bob?” the Englishman said.
Solomon, too, appealed to the guide. “What’s so appalling,” he said, “is that it’s there. Caught up. Pinned against the dam. The arm jerking to and fro. We don’t know if we can get to it.”
“Better take a look,” said Bob Johnson.
“It’s down there, through the b-bush. If you don’t mind,” said Solomon, “I’d—I’d be glad not to go b-back just yet.”
“She’ll be right,” said Bob Johnson. “Stay where you are.”
He walked off unostentatiously, a person of authority, followed by the Englishman and their bearded mate. The Englishman’s name, they were to learn, was Miles Curtis-Vane. The other was called McHaffey. He was the local schoolmaster in the nearest township downcountry and was of a superior and, it would emerge, cantankerous disposition.
Dr. Mark came over to Solomon. “Your young friend’s pretty badly shocked,” he said. “Were they related?”
“No. It’s his stepfather. His mother’s up at the camp. She fainted.”
“Alone?”
“Dave Wingfield’s with her. He’s the other member of our lot.”
“The boy wants to go to her.”
“So do I, if she’ll see me. I wonder—would you mind taking charge? Professionally, I mean.”
“If there’s anything I can do. I think perhaps I should join the others now. Will you take the boy up? If his mother would like to see me, I’ll come.”
“Yes. All right. Yes, of course.”
“Were they very close?” Dr. Mark asked. “He and his stepfather?”
There was a longish pause. “Not very,” Solomon said. “It’s more the shock. He’s very devoted to his mother. We all are. If you don’t mind, I’ll—”
“No, of course.”
So Solomon went to Clive and they walked together to the camp.
“I reckon,” Bob Johnson said, after a hard stare at the dam, “it can be done.”
Curtis-Vane said, “They seem to have taken it for granted it’s impossible.”
“They may not have the rope for it.”
“We have.”
“That’s right.”
“By Cripie,” said Bob Johnson, “it’d give you the willies, wouldn’t it? That arm. Like a bloody semaphore.”
“Well,” said Dr. Mark, “what’s the drill, then, Bob? Do we make the offer?”
“Here’s their other bloke,” said Bob Johnson.
David Wingfield came down the bank sideways. He acknowledged Curtis-Vane’s introductions with guarded nods.
“If we can be of any use,” said Curtis-Vane, “just say the word.”
Wingfield said, “It’s going to be tough.” He had not looked at the dam but he jerked his head in that direction.
“What’s the depth?” Bob Johnson asked.
“Near enough five foot.”
“We carry rope.”
“That’ll be good.”
Some kind of reciprocity had been established. The two men withdrew together.
“What would you reckon?” Wingfield asked. “How many on the rope?”
“Five,” Bob Johnson said, “if they’re good. She’s coming down solid.”
“Sol Gosse isn’t all that fit. He’s got a crook knee.”
“The bloke with the stammer?”
“That’s right.”
“What about the young chap?”
“All right normally, but he’s — you know — shaken up.”
“Yeah,” said Bob. “Our mob’s O.K.”
“Including the pom?”
“He’s all right. Very experienced.”
“With me, we’d be five,” Wingfield said.
“For you to say.”
“She’ll be right, then.”
“One more thing,” said Bob. “What’s the action when we get him out? What do we do with him?”
They debated this. It was decided, subject to Solomon Gosse’s and Clive’s agreement, that the body should be carried to a clearing near the big beech and left there in a ground sheet from his tent. It would be a decent distance from the camp.
“We could build a bit of a windbreak round it,” Bob said.
“Sure.”
“That’s his tent, is it? Other side of the creek?”
“Yeah. Beyond the bridge.”
“I didn’t see any bridge.”
“You must have,” said Wingfield, “if you came that way. It’s where the creek runs through a twenty-foot-deep gutter. Couldn’t miss it.”
“Got swept away, it might have.”
“Has the creek flooded its banks, then? Up there?”
“No. No, that’s right. It couldn’t have carried away. What sort of bridge is it?”
Wingfield described the bridge. “Light but solid,” he said. “He made a job of it.”
“Funny,” said Bob.
“Yeah. I’ll go up and collect the ground sheet from his tent. And take a look.”
“We’d better get this job over, hadn’t we? What about the wife?”
“Sol Gosse and the boy are with her. She’s O.K.”
“Not likely to come out?”
“Not a chance.”
“Fair enough,” said Bob.
So Wingfield walked up to Caley Bridgeman’s tent to collect his ground sheet.
When he returned, the others had taken off their packs and laid out a coil of climbers’ rope. They gathered round Bob, who gave the instructions. Presently the line of five men was ready to move out into the sliding flood above the dam.
Solomon Gosse appeared. Bob suggested that he take the end of the rope, turn it round a tree trunk and stand by to pay it out or take it up as needed.
And in this way and with great difficulty Caley Bridgeman’s body was brought ashore, where Dr. Mark examined it. It was much battered. They wrapped it in the ground sheet and tied it round with twine. Solomon Gosse stood guard over it while the others changed into dry clothes.