Chapter 1. Gift horses
1888 Port Campbell Australia
Innis noticed the straw coloured twine amongst the wreckage
of the ship. In the sheltered inlet, he watched it eddy and swirl
around the hands and feet of the dead.
It caught on his rolled up sleeves and bare legs, and it followed
in his wake as he and Florry dragged the bodies of the passengers
and crew ashore.
Since arriving at first light he’d had a growing sense of unease.
Standing in the shallows he scanned the cliffs above and the
track that led down to the beach. There was nothing out of place
- except the bodies and debris that he and Florry had brought ashore,
and picked through for anything of value.
His Nain had often said, the guilty flee when no-one pursues.
He smiled at the thought of the sour old crow - but even repeating
her words to himself, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was
being watched.
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Glenample station was a large pastoral holding surrounded
on three sides by flat, almost featureless land. To the south, it was
bordered by nearly 50 miles of unbroken sea cliffs and the wild ocean
of the Bass Straight
It was at Glenample station that Innis met Florry.
Innis had been part of a group of travelling stonemasons who''d
made additions to the homestead and built outhouses on the property.
Mr.Gibson the station owner, had offered him a job as a general
roustabout, and he''d stayed when the others had moved on to the
goldfields in search of work.
Florry was a jack of all trades, who worked seasonally across the
district. He’d worked on boats in the straight and along the coast,
as a whaler and a sealer until a badly broken leg put him ashore in the
nearby settlement of Port Campbell.
Both were from Cornwall and had become fast friends almost as
soon as they''d met.
Mr. Gibson called them his pair of Cornish bastards.
*
They were mending a fence when a stockman rode up.
"Where are you off to George?" Innis asked.
The stockman was on his way to the telegraph office at the
nearby railway siding. "Mr. Gibson is sending a message to
Port Melbourne about the shipwreck."
Florry put down the roll of fencing wire he was carrying and
wiped his hands. "What shipwreck would that be then?"
"Off Mutton Bird island," George said. "maybe five or so miles
from the homestead."
The day before George and another stockman had been mustering
when they came across a survivor from the shipwreck walking
along the cliff path.
A search party had been organized and another survivor had
been found in a cove below.
"Where are they now?" Innis asked.
"Both of them are resting up at the homestead. Mrs. Gibson
is looking after them."
As George rode off, Florry turned to Innis. "If we get an early
start and go further east along the coast, we could get a full
day of going through whatever washes up before anyone
comes looking."
Florry smiled.
"They don’t call this the shipwreck coast for nothing."
*
The next day they arrived before dawn on a clifftop that
overlooked a series of sheltered coves and inlets.
In the early light Innis was astonished to see a glowing
green cloud in the current. "What do you make of that?"
Florry spat on the ground and scowled. "It''s as bad an omen
as I’ve ever seen." Then he laughed and clapped Innis on
the shoulder.
"Don''t be getting spooked. I’ve seen it before. It''s phosphorous
matches that were bound for the mines."
Innis said nothing. He watched the glowing cloud start to fade
as the sun began to rise. Something felt out of place, but he
couldn’t say what it was. There was enough light to walk the
track down from the clifftop to the shoreline.
"Stop faffing around Innis, gift horses don’t wash up every day."
*