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Closing the book, Jed looks over at Alex curled up in the armchair. She opens her eyes slowly and refocuses on him. “What an incredible story! What does it have to do with us?”

  “Maybe nothing, maybe a lot,” Jed suggests. “Let’s consider the facts. Karl left the Philippines with at least one Japanese-American. Pulling them out must have been a high priority for the Yanks. You suggest that one offered him something to take his daughter as well. The daughter seems to be part Aboriginal, therefore it seems that at some point he had a child with an Aboriginal woman. This man saw both sides of the conflict. I’m thinking he was some kind of double agent. Prior to the war, the Japanese had pearling fleets across the north of Australia and it’s well known that for some, their duties involved gathering information.”

  “I didn’t know that and I bet lots of others don’t either. It sounds like you’re stretching a very long bow.”

  “Perhaps Alex. All I’m doing is listing facts. How does a Japanese-American end up having a child with an Aboriginal woman? I’m going to be bloody blunt. In those days it often happened by rape or kidnapping. This is different—there appears to be love involved.”

  “Ah,” she hums thoughtfully. “It depends on what kind of love may have been involved between them. Lust or respect? Did you know the Ancient Greeks had four words for love? Their language distinguished how the word is used. Storgç was the natural affection within the family, philia was about friendship, çrôs was passionate love with sensual desire and longing, while agápç described deeper love and cherishment different to çrôs. Clever people, the Ancient Greeks, to understand the difference.” She looks at him over the rim of the glass as she sips the champagne, her eyes thoughtful.

  “We can discuss concepts of love later,” Jed says with barely concealed impatience. He is on the verge of being a principal again, but is on a roll. “Karl hinted this man had been in the Torres Strait and also said something about no more Kaldon Bays. I doubt there’s anywhere called Kaldon Bay. If there is I’ve never heard of it.”

  The principal strikes again, brushing off the intangible to focus on the objective, making Alex seethe in silence. He sounds so bloody confident. If he hasn’t heard of it, it is unlikely to exist! She smiles politely, but promises to get that one back sometime.

  “There is, however, a Caledon Bay in the Northern Territory,” Jed continues. “In the early thirties it was the scene of a massacre of Japanese fishermen. In 1932, members of a boat crew, whom some accuse of, abducted and raped a group of women in the Caledon Bay area of Northeast. The fishermen then attacked Yolngu men who came to rescue the women. In the resulting fight, five of the boat’s crew were killed. In a similar incident on Wonnan Island, two white men were killed. A policeman investigating the deaths was subsequently killed by Yolngu people.”

  Alex listens intently without moving.

  “According to witnesses, he handcuffed and raped a Yolngu woman, then fired his revolver at her husband who had responded to her cries for help. There are differing views. One is the massacre was payback for the treatment of Aboriginal women or because previous crews didn’t pay for the services of the women. All Japanese were seen as being from the same tribe so the innocent may have suffered for the guilty. The exact truth is difficult to ascertain. The whole affair had a big impact on relations with the indigenous people.”

  Jed takes a breath and lifts his finger to emphasise his next point, but Alex beats him to it.

  “Suppose our mystery man had been involved in a similar situation somewhere in the Torres Strait. Suppose he intervened and stopped the incident happening, ending up with the scar across his chest. And suppose he ended up romantically involved with an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander woman with whom he had a daughter. A grateful father could easily have given Fire Eye as a gift, or perhaps he stole it. There are multiple possibilities in the scenario. Even if the Fire Eye legend isn’t true or has nothing to do with the letter, there might be something interesting on that plane.”

  Jed smiles in response to her enthusiasm. “I love seeing your mind at work! It works fast, even while drinking and stuffing food into your mouth.” Jed suddenly flinches as her foot catches him on his shin and his eyes water. Those Italian shoes certainly pack a punch! “What was that for?”

  “Commenting on my mind was a compliment I appreciate. Adding a comment about stuffing my face and drinking was not a good combination! How on earth do you survive with women?”

  Her eyes, he notes, flash with a mixture of fire and humour. He isn’t sure about the proportions.

  “I thought I was complimenting you on being so multi-skilled,” he flounders.

  She looks at him with eyes that threaten to pin him to the chair, but could also be dancing with playful humour. He senses he has gambled unknowingly with another napalm strike.

  Alex makes herself comfortable and takes command of the conversation again. “You really have a lively imagination,” she says. “I have a highly analytical mind and have to admit that a scenario like the one we’ve tossed around does link the known facts.”

  “It also leads to another logical question,” Jed suggests carefully, wary of the Skyraider fighter bomber he senses still circling with its deadly load.

  “And what would that be?” Alex asks quietly. She tops up her champagne and looks him in the eyes.

  “Why is a page of Karl’s letter missing and what’s in it?”

  She doesn’t answer and the cloud he has seen before drifts across her eyes and stays there.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Dressing for dinner would have suited the venue, but the best they can do is shower, dust off their boots and change blouses and shirts. It is the price of travelling light, a virtue Jed values, although Alex is still armed with those Italian shoes. Dinner is sumptuous—game pie, steamed vegetables and superb wine served on the verandah with candles, allowing the cloudless, star-filled sky to fulfil its role as an all encompassing umbrella over their private part of the world. Insects chirp and click beyond the light and they can hear the occasional bird still singing somewhere in the darkness.

  Alex is wearing a black top with the strap teetering precariously on her right shoulder. Jed’s shirt is open at the top, exposing a jade-studded necklace in the shape of a fish hook and a hint of chest hair.

  “That’s an interesting necklace,” Alex comments. “I’ve never seen a man wear anything like that before.”

  “It’s a Maori Hei Matau or fish hook. It’s a symbol of prosperity. Fish was a traditional food for the Maori and ownership of a hook denoted prosperity. It also symbolised strength, determination, good health and a safe journey over water. On long canoe journeys between islands, a fish hook meant food. This one was a gift.”

  “Why were you given it?” she asks with genuine curiosity.

  “I accomplished something when they gave me a lesson about leadership,” Jed says hesitatingly.

  “Are you going to tell me about it?”

  Jed ponders the question. The wine on top of the champagne is washing away his defensive barriers. “Normally I wouldn’t even mention it to a woman, but you may be more open minded.”

  She looks at him with a questioning expression and is about to offer a teasing comment, but refrains. “I’m listening.” Intuition alerts her it involves something significant to him.

  “I was doing a presentation in New Zealand about leadership across cultures. I had a section about Maori leadership and asked one of the Maori conference organisers to check what I had written. They knew I hunted wild pigs, so at the end of the day I was invited out with another delegate who had been in the Cypriot army. We were taken out in a helicopter and each given a bayonet as we flew low over a beach. The pigs lived in the coastal forest and the only way to hunt them was to catch them on the beach. We were each dropped on a mob and expected to run one down and finish it with the bayonet.”

  He stops for a moment to check her reaction. She is still attentive and gives no hint of her feelings.
r />   “We were picked up later and the pigs were taken back for preparation. While we’d been away a hangi was already cooking and we had a feast, drank their home brew and slept on the beach before flying back to the conference the next morning. The lesson was a powerful one on Maori concepts of leadership and the power and prestige of a chief.”

  Alex sits silent and attentive.

  Jed continues. “Mana tûpana is the prestige inherited from a chief and mana tangata is the power and prestige coming from personal achievement, skill and knowledge. In the morning they said, ‘When you talk about leadership, they will listen!’ I think perhaps they were right. The opening slide received a round of applause from the indigenous delegates in the workshop,” Jed confesses with obvious humility. “Does my story upset you?” he has to ask.

  Alex thinks about her answer. She senses it means a great deal to him. “No, I’m not upset,” Alex says. “Opening yourself to that situation was a high risk thing to do. Not meeting their standards would have undermined your authority. They saw you could do it and what you were talking about carried extra weight.”

  He looks back into her eyes and is relieved she can see the story in context. Not everyone could have done that. It isn’t the kind of thing he shares with many people in a highly urbanised world.

  “It’s getting late. What a magnificent dinner! Perhaps we should get some sleep for tomorrow,” he suggests. There has been enough personal exposure for one night.

  “I’m a night owl,” Alex tells Jed, “but I have to confess I’m tired. It has been a hell of a day.”

  As they walk back to their rooms, the scent of her perfume risks demolishing Jed’s weakened inhibitions. An electric shock passes between them as Jed’s hand inadvertently touches Alex’s arm as they turn a corner. Alex unlocks the door and turns to say goodnight. Jed stands in front of her and runs his eyes over her face and the sensuous curves of her lips, highlighted by her lipstick. Red! Ripeness! He contemplates the unthinkable and enjoys a momentary vision of Alex naked in his arms.

  Being so close to Alex sends shivers of anticipation down Jed’s body, but he maintains control. “By the way,” he whispers, “Agape is found in one Corinthians thirteen. It is described as sacrificial love, but was also used to describe feelings for a good meal and one’s own children, as well as the respect for a spouse held in very high regard.” In his fuzzy state, it sounded pretty good when he’d googled it while pretending to go to the gents earlier in the evening.

  Alex is suddenly taken aback. Confusion swirls like a whirlpool among the rapids of a wild, raging river. So he’s listened and not brushed off her comments!

  “Goodnight Alex!” Jed says with a slight slur as he takes the three steps to his own room and opens the door. He gives her a small wave with his finger and closes the door without looking back. He hears the slam of her door, loud enough to rattle his own.

  “Women! I wonder what’s up with her tonight?” he mutters before throwing off his clothes and crashing onto the bed exhausted.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Jed finds the night has not diminished his sense of failure. He slips in and out of restless sleep. In his psyche, it is normal for a man to be successful; a man flies, shoots, cooks, solves problems, handles a motorbike, survives in the bush and faces danger without hesitation, providing security for those he loves. He has been given a challenge and failed. It gnaws at him with no sign of letting go, but he hides his self-doubt as he normally does. He finds her at breakfast behind a copy of the Northern Territory News with one coffee down and another started.

  “Good morning,” he chirps, trying his best to sound positive.

  “Hi.”

  “Did you sleep well?” he asks politely, expecting to kick start a conversation.

  “Yes.”

  “Have you ordered breakfast?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you mind if I order something?”

  “No.”

  “The paper must be full of news today,” he suggests with a touch of sarcasm starting to creep in.

  “It is.”

  The morning is not starting well. He racks his brain for anything he could have done to upset her, but can’t think of anything. He senses that a ground crew is preparing the dreaded napalm-armed Skyraider bomber for another airstrike and hopes the target isn’t going to be him. He stares at the back of the paper she is lurking behind. He applies his rational mind to the problem and a light goes on. Perhaps she’s got PMT, he considers thoughtfully. An idea finally comes to him, daring but risky. With his finger he gingerly pulls down the top of the paper until he can see her eyes.

  “Is something bothering you Alex? Would you like to talk about it?” What a brilliant line, he considers in triumph. I have just moved Neanderthal man forward twenty thousand years on the sensitivity scale!

  She folds the paper and drops it on the table, looking at him with penetrating eyes that reveal nothing of her thoughts.

  There is no way she is going to tell him he is making her hotter than a glasshouse in a heat wave. So she sticks to the Teflon theory of conversation—say nothing that will stick. “Thank you for asking. How are you feeling this morning?”

  Jed senses the Skyraider is grounded for the moment. “I have to admit I’m feeling disappointed yesterday wasn’t more successful,” he confesses.

  “Maybe I’m disappointed too, in more ways than one,” she responds without further explanation. “It’s not your fault. I dumped a huge challenge on you. It is unrealistic to expect success on the first attempt.”

  “I’ll find that bloody plane, no matter how long it takes me,” he promises with determination as he tucks into the poached eggs and leans back in his chair. They already had coffee to start the day and the hearty breakfast is complemented by a second cup, then a third for her. Alex is definitely a two-cup starter in the morning. Maybe that is all she needed, he decides.

  Instead of the deepening shades of purple encouraged by the setting sun, the morning sunlight enhances the rich and varied reds with a vibrancy that is breathtaking. By the time they bounce their way to the airstrip, the colours are stark and strong. They buy fuel to top up the tanks and Jed taxies the aircraft to the fuelling shed. He shows Alex how to connect the earth wire to the exhaust pipe to avoid static electricity and then chock the fuel drum with a piece of timber directly under the drum cap before inserting the pump.

  “Refuelling from a drum can be a bit problematic,” he advises. “This way, any dirt stays away from the pump pick up and doesn’t get into the fuel tanks. The last thing we need over this `country is an engine failure!”

  “Support that, most definitely,” she agrees as she pumps the last of the fuel into the plane.

  “That’ll give us full tanks and six hours flying. More than enough to do what we have to do.”

  They push the plane back from the fuel shed, climb in and start up. The engine settles into a steady beat as they taxi out slowly, giving the oil temperature time to reach the green zone on the gauge. He hits the radio to announce their intentions and then hands over to Alex.

  “Your take off! Keep us straight with your feet on the rudder pedals and put your hand on the throttle,” he commands. She does as she is told without argument and Jed puts his hand over hers on the throttle, pushing it forward so the aircraft accelerates down the strip.

  “Keep the weight off the nose wheel with back pressure on the control wheel. I’m on the controls with you,” he instructs. Although she is doing the take off, he is still in full control with finger and foot pressure as he talks her through the manoeuvre.

  “When we hit fifty-five knots, apply gentle back pressure and she will fly off,” he says, still covering her hand over the throttle. “As we go through two hundred feet, raise the flaps, maintain a climb speed of eighty knots with nose attitude. Bring the manifold pressure back to twenty-five inches and the revs back to two thousand five hundred. When we get to two thousand feet, close the cowl flaps.”

 
“I’m dripping sweat! I’ve never worked so hard, ever!” she announces with exhilaration as they climb away into the morning sky. They turn to the northeast to retrace their route from the day before, tracking with the morning sun to their right. It illuminates the blue of the ocean, graduating from the light electric blue shallows, through the powder blue deeper water out to the azure of the distant ocean. The angle of the sun provides a different perspective as they inspect the coastline once more.

  They circle the first of the likely spots identified the day before, but even Alex quickly dismisses it. “The hills and channels are too far apart. They couldn’t possibly show up in the photograph.”

  Jed agrees and they settle in for the flight up to the next possibility while he gives her additional tips for managing the aircraft. He has no doubt she is a natural pilot and that a flying instructor could do great things with her. Flying a plane, that is.

  They circle the next likely location three times, each tempted by the geography of the landscape and the bluff rearing up out of the vegetation.

  “That’s a good looking spot,” Jed announces tentatively. “Everything matches my sketch except for the channel. It’s a real pity.” He takes the controls and as they turn to track north again, he looks back at the spot, not wanting to let it go as his brain ticks over. Nagging thoughts gnaw away at him.

  Alex keeps staring at the area as well and doesn’t respond. Suddenly she puts her hand on the control wheel and feet on the rudders and turns the aircraft around back toward the bluff. “That whole area matches your sketch to a T,” she announces with authority. “My guess is the channel has been cut off from the sea in recent times and it’s silted up.”

  Jed doesn’t bother discussing it. He’s majored in geography, but her brain is working faster than his. “Cyclone Tracey came through in 1974. That alone could do it or any of the other storms during the wet seasons. You have sharp eyes.”

  “I majored in geology at uni, among other things. It looks thick down there.”