Joyday for Jodi

Lucy Walker - Joyday for Jodi (1970)

Two English girls, Jodi Dean, a nurse, and Carina Radford, secretary, arrive at Tarrara in the Australian outback—Jodi in search of a long-lost brother, Carina looking for a husband. Jodi is immediately plunged into coping with a chicken-pox epidemic, while Carina spends her time flirting with the boss of Tarrara: strong, impassive Alec Jardene. Frustrations and jealousies ensue, but in the tough life of the outback the English girls find friends and a sense of belonging. By the end of their stay at Tarrara, both have fulfilled their ambitions—though not quite in the way they first expected ...

CHAPTER ONE He's really rather a dear! Jodi thought of the man. He was interviewing her from the other side of a paper-littered table. She liked his easy smile and his rather unruly hair. Also that he was youngish and very understanding. What a daisy! Simon Mansion was for his part thinking. 'Do they all come fresh out of England like this? I must go there sometime!' He liked her good features, and her dark hair with its fringe that strayed a little—but in a quite beguiling way. He also liked her rare smile. He had been busy trying to tempt it out into the open more often. Her cornflower-blue eyes were fringed with long black lashes—which were her own. He liked that too. Right now she was being much too earnest. 'Why are you making notes?' he asked with a smile. 'I've never seen someone looking for a job do that before.' 'Well, you see . . .' Jodi explained carefully, her pencil poised over her notebook, and her eyes so very serious. I never do forget details, you know. But just in case I do, well, I have a written reminder . . .' She broke off, a little abashed, and closed her notebook. 'Oh, keep putting me down by all means,' Simon said, his smile becoming a real grin. 'Who knows? My words might one day turn out to be nuggets of wisdom. Have you stored up any really good quotes yet?' 'You're laughing at me!' Jodi said seriously. 'Not laughing. Just smiling and being rather pulled-in too.' Jodi looked puzzled. 'You see,' Simon said, reaching for a cigarette and pushing the box towards Jodi. She shook her head. He lit up. 'You quite get me in. Is that clearer? And your certificates are too formidable. They almost alarm me.' Jodi's eyes lit up.

'You mean—you think you might get this job for me?' I mean I'd like to, and I might. There's a big "but" however.' Jodi's face fell. 'There's always a "but",' she said ruefully. 'This is not the first post you've applied for since you arrived from England?' 'This is the third, but this is the one I really want. Please Mr Mansion, couldn't you recommend me just for a trial! I won't let you down!' He shook his head. 'That wouldn't be fair-go. I wouldn't send anyone out there to Tarrara on trial anyway. The whole darn place is trial enough. Hardly a house left standing after the floods went through. It's a real camp town. No —I'm going to recommend you outright. But—' Jodi passed from momentary elation to rue again. She straightened her shoulders, pushed her fringe aside with her pencil hand and smiled the best kind of smile she knew for the occasion. 'Let me know the worst quickly,' she begged. I'll steel myself in advance.' 'Okay Jodi. But tell me something first. Why did you not succeed with the first two posts you applied for? Don't answer that if you'd rather not. I'm just curious as a person, that's all.' Jodi furrowed her brow and thought. 'Well,' she said at last, 'with the first one I think they didn't quite believe my credentials. I mean those certificates. I don't really look like them, do I? That was a problem at home in England too. I realize it's such a long long way for a hospital here in Australia to write back to England to check my nursing certificates. Besides they couldn't wait. They wanted someone at once.' 'Point made,' said Simon. 'I could see their problem. And the second job?' 'They were awfully kind there,' Jodi went on. 'But you see, they thought it wasn't quite fair to me. At least that is what they said. The job was relatively an unusual one. Junior too. They—' she paused, not wanting to sound brash. 'They said your certificates were too good for that particular post? That you were entitled to something with a better salary. Was that it?' She nodded, avoiding his eyes because she did not want to appear prideful about her achievements. There were others with better, anyway. When she did look up Simon was smiling. He really is rather a pet, she thought again. If only he could be the employer! Alas, he was merely acting as agent for someone out in the country. A relative, or something. 'Well, that's settled,' Simon was saying. 'Now we can be friends instead of mere business acquaintances. You agree? How about having dinner with me

tonight? Don't say you have another engagement, Jodi, because if you do I'll issue my first instruction. Cancel it.' She nodded happily. 'I'd love to have dinner with you. But first—please, why have you changed your mind about me? You weren't certain of me at the first interview, were you?' Simon grinned, rather enjoying himself. 'I'll tell you that, and a lot more if you have dinner with me tonight. I'll even give you a thorough run-down on Alec Jardene. He's your future boss. At our first interview I was thinking more about what he says he most needs. And how he'd react to someone—' Jodi looked puzzled. 'You mean he mightn't like me?' Simon Mansion laughed. 'Jodi, you really are unworldly, aren't you? I can't imagine anyone who wouldn't like you. Not that Alec Jardene is likely to show his feelings anyway.' He paused, tapped the ash from his cigarette thoughtfully, then added, 'As for girls—or even women—I wouldn't know how Alec feels now. He had one near-miss in the matrimonial stakes. I guess that cured him for keeps. The girls certainly like him. He has that certain something—whatever it is women like. Or maybe it's his acres and his homestead that appeal. Maybe it's the fact he's way ahead of any other farmer or station-owner out there at Tarrara. He's the top man of the district.' 'Is that why the people in the district nominated him to plan and organize the new town for them?' 'That's why. They know he'll master-mind the whole thing with skill, enterprise, and a deft handling of the inhabitants themselves. The government, the shire authorities and all other district busy-bodies around think a lot of him too. He's that kind of man.' 'Yet he won't be pleased that you are sending me?' "Criterion that he laid down was that the person required must be one experienced in this country's conditions and, if possible, have had experience in relief situations. You won't have a real hospital to work in now. The place is one vast shambles—' 'I see.' Jodi was thoughtful. Then she perked up. 'But if you send me, and I prove myself . . .?', 'That's up to you.' One eyebrow went up as he added, 'Jodi, do you know you are very pretty? Also just a little naive in spite of those thundering certificates? Have I said that before? How about using tactics? That's a better word than "cunning". Ever tried worming your way into a person's

confidence?' Jodi's smile was no more than half a one. 'Even in the teaching hospitals in London there are occasions when one has to do a little winning. That's a better word than "worming", isn't it?' Simon pushed back his chair and stood up. He was tall, hazel-eyed and likeable. He smiled often, and that helped. Jodi found it delightful. Sort of comradely . . . 'Let's go and get some coffee to seal the bargain,' he said, holding out his hand. "Then dinner tonight. I'll call for you at seven. Wear something ravishing, won't you? I'm going to take you to the Parmelia. Our slashingest hotel yet.' 'You mean I must wear my best? I will, I'll even go to the hairdresser too.' 'Whacko!' Simon said, delighted, his grin more infectious than ever. They had reached the door together. 'Mr Mansion, I want to thank you—' 'Simon is my name, Jodi. Forget the Mansion. Incidentally Alec Jardene is my cousin. I run the Stock and Station Agency that has his account. So being his agent, I had this job—of finding a resident nurse for Tarrara—landed on my plate. If you value your skin you'd better forget to tell him anything about your dinner engagements in the Wild West City of Perth, Jodi. He might think there was collusion. He won't be pleased that you're not a tanned Australian country girl, when he first sees you. But he'll learn.' Jodi laughed. 'This city is such a pretty place,' she said. 'Not wild but very west. Somebody told me it is fifteen hundred miles to the next major city.' 'Correct. Djakarta in Indonesia and Adelaide in South Australia, fight it out for which is the nearer.' They went through the door, Jodi laughing up at Simon as he related stern and alarming things about Alec Jardene, and more of the discomforts of the wilderness to which she might soon be going, 'Is it all right if I tell my room-mate about our dinner tonight?' Jodi asked. 'Yes, of course,' Simon said cheerfully. 'It's only Alec Jardene we have to treat with caution. It's simply a matter of my sending him a girl almost the opposite to the kind of girl he wants. He'll start wondering why. I'm letting Alec know in advance that there wasn't anyone else as well trained as you. That is quite true. You play that little card yourself, Jodi, if necessary. Just tell him from me it's you or no one. Right?'

Jodi, on her way back to her 'digs' half an hour later, could have skipped along the Terrace. She had a job! Hurray! Much more important, it was a job where she wanted to go. Her parents had died in a typhoid fever outbreak when she had been three and a half years old. 'Mam' and 'Dad' Dean had adopted her. She could not remember her own parents but she could faintly remember a brother older than herself. He too had been adopted because the children had had no living relatives. He had been taken up by a couple from Australia. Over the years, whenever Jodi had spoken to Mam about her brother, her new parents had tried to discover what had become of him. They dearly loved Jodi as their own wanted child. She loved them too. They were her real parents now. But where was her brother? Mam and Dad in later years had reproached themselves for not having thought earlier of what this could mean to Jodi. Too late in the day, they could not now find who had adopted her brother. Files of adopted children were closed. A secret right to the end of time. Nothing could be divulged to adopting parents or to an adopted child. The file was closed. Period! One woman who worked in the adopting agency remembered the case of the two small bereft children. She was not permitted to look for the relevant case, but there was one thing she did remember. The adopting parents of the boy had been Australians. They had been going back to what they called the 'Goldfields' in the west of Australia. The man had worked in gold mines. She remembered that because gold was so glamorous a thing. That was all she dared to tell Mr and Mrs Dean. She could not remember the names, and for this she was thankful. Sometimes tragedy came from past relatives turning up out of the blue and making claims on children long adopted and now secure and happy with their new parents. This was the reason for official silence, and closed files. When Jodi had finished her double certificate training as a nurse she confided to Mam that—if she could be spared— she would like to go on a working holiday to some other country. "Everybody's doing it,' she explained. 'It's the in-thing. Some of the nurses already trained went to Europe, and some to Canada, on working holidays. They said to get wise and broadminded you have to go on a working trip. That way you really live with the people.' In our day it used to be called the Grand Tour,' Mam said. 'But it was only for the rich, of course. We never had that kind of money. Things have changed since our day. Everyone seems to go . . .' 'I'm sure to come back,' Jodi pleaded. In two years . . .' 'It looks as if the decision's made,' her father said after a minute's deep

thought. 'When the bird has grown it must learn to fly, Mam. I suppose that's about it, Jodi—if your mother agrees.' Mrs Dean was mending her husband's work socks. I agree,' she said without looking up. I think, you should go to Australia. It's a long way away, of course . . .' She was still darning, her eyes on her work. Jodi had the queer feeling that some kind of telepathy was going on between her parents, though neither looked at the other. 'It's like this—' her father said gruffly. 'It's a big country and finding something would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. But there's a sort of vacant plot in your life, isn't there, Jodi?' "You mean my brother?' Jodi asked in a voice that creaked. I hardly remember him. Sometimes I sort-of forget—what I'm trying to remember. He was older. He used to say my name in a funny way too. Sometimes I nearly remember what it was. Then it's gone. If only I could see him once. Just once. Then I'd know what it was—the way he said my name . . .' I think perhaps you want just to go and look' her father said kindly. 'To have tried. Is that it? You'd rest content if you knew you had tried; or maybe just seen the country he lives in?' 'Yes. But please—Dad and Mam—my saying I wanted to go on a working holiday wasn't just a subterfuge. I would have wanted to do that anyway. That is ... if you . . .' 'Don't mind?' Mam finished for her. 'Well, we don't mind. We've seen it coming in a way. All the girls want to leave home—for a little while. Or so it seems. They call it modern, and with it, and all that. Dad and I are only grateful it hasn't been pot and too much pop and student rebellions. We oldies don't understand it. A working holiday we do understand.' She shrugged her shoulders and looked at Jodi with her endearing smile. 'Who knows? Dad and I might go for a sea-trip too. Well, some day—we might even go to Australia. In a year or two—' 'And meet me there?' Jodi cried, excitedly. 'Oh you pets! You're the greatest. Why was I so lucky—" 'We were the lucky ones, Jodi,' Dad said quietly. So Jodi had packed her bags, and taken a tearful farewell of her beloved parents. While she had been on duty at the hospital they had found out about the right clothes for a hot- country: about passport and vaccinations. They had found the name of an Australian bank where they could deposit a small sum of money. 'Just in case—' they said. 'You might need it. You never can tell . . .' Jodi wondered, all over again, why she had such good parents. How lucky she had been!

'Well, it's this way,' Dad was fond of explaining. 'We were the fortunate ones because we were given the daughter we wanted. We were able to pick our own child. Most people take what they get. The only regret we've had has been a tough one. We should have had your brother too. But you see? Those Australians got in first. We never even heard their name.' Now in Australia, her momentous interview with Simon Mansion over, Jodi raced back to her 'digs'. Her roommate was there, before the mirror, busy trying on a new blonde wiglet. Carina Radford already had three wiglets. Each a different colour. 'With this new one, I now have four personalities,' she announced, not turning from the mirror as Jodi came in. I think this will be the most glamorous. Next, of course, I have to find a way to meet a millionaire. Preferably the land-owning kind. A "Sheep Millionaire". They do have them here, you know. Australia's famous for them. That's why I came.' She rearranged the wiglet to get yet another effect. 'Do you know, Jodi?' she went on, to own land is the most important way to get into any sort of aristocracy? It's the glamour thing for a girl to pull off—I can tell you.' 'Carina, please, I've some wonderful news,' Jodi interrupted. 'Do put that thing down while I tell you.' She flopped on her bed and kicked off her shoes. 'Oh, my poor feet! I needn't have worn the new shoes, after all. It was my certificates and not my feet that mattered.' Carina took the wiglet off and began delicately combing the curls. 'Is that so?' she asked, still not turning round. 'Easy for you to get a job! But then nurses are in short supply everywhere. You'd be bound to land a job before I did. Secretaries now—' 'Oh, Carina, you will get a job. I'm sure of that. After all we've only been here a fortnight. It was good luck to meet up with each other as cabin-mates on the ship. At least we were able to halve expenses here—' She broke off. She remembered that if she went out in the country to Tarrara she wouldn't be here to pay her share. Actually this was a very knotty problem. She hadn't really liked Carina all that much at first. But—well, they had been stuck with each other, and so far it had worked out. She couldn't leave Carina in the lurch—financial-wise. Or could she? Jodi lay back on the bed, her head on the pillow, and closed her eyes. 'Well, go on,' Carina said, trying the newly curled hairpiece on her head again. 'Where is this job and how much do they pay?' 'A place called Tarrara. Carina, you remember reading in the paper the day our ship berthed in Fremantle about the town in the country that had been all but washed away by floods? It was way out in the bush somewhere—' 'Yes. And the other town that had been turned into rubble by the earthquake

first. What next? The papers said floods and tidal waves often come after earthquakes. It's all beyond me ..." 'The people of this flooded-out town have had to set themselves up temporarily on safer ground,' Jodi went on. 'You know, tents and caravans, army huts and all that. Just imagine it. All the food has to be taken in. And clothes. Only a makeshift school for the children.' 'At least they won't die of thirst, will they? There'll be plenty of water.' 'Don't be sarcastic, Carina dear. It's one thing to read about it in the papers. Quite another thing to be there. Most of these people have lost everything. There are some sick people, some with minor injuries. The major cases have been air-lifted down to Perth for treatment: or taken to another town with the gorgeous name of Cracker Creek. I wonder who ever thought of that? And why?' Carina took her wig off, turned round and surveyed the prostrate figure of the shoeless Jodi lying on the bed. 'So what?' she asked. 'Don't tell me you're really going out there? So help me, Jodi, you must be mad. And what about me? We've only one more week's rent paid up. I don't want to have to go and wash dishes in a restaurant—' Jodi sat up. Oh dear, she thought. I would so have liked not to take Carina too! 'Listen,' she said aloud. They've formed a sort of administrative set-up amongst themselves. These town people, I mean. They're running their makeshift town on their own. And making plans about a new town. Or new houses ... or something.' 'Why doesn't the government do it?' 'The government is giving them money. They prefer to run it themselves. They want their town the way they want it. There's a very important property-Owner for whom they all have respect, and they've set themselves up on either side of a creek of the river that flooded, it's not so very far from his farm. They've appointed him to be in charge and to run everything. He gets the right experts in to advise, and all that—' 'Hm!' said Carina. 'So this man needs a resident nurse for those who have scratches, cuts, and colds. Is that it?' 'Put it that way, if you like,' Jodi said, lying back on her bed again and staring at the ceiling. 'It could be more. Floodwaters generally carry—' She broke off. She had been going to say 'disease germs and such like' but decided that might sound a bit melodramatic. Instead she added, 'Oh, they do seem to have two relieving or part-time nurses. But they need one full-time. That's me.' 'What's this Boss man like?' Carina asked. 'Fat, old, and self-important?'

'I wouldn't know. His Stock-and-Station Agent appointed me on his behalf.' 'Married, I'll bet. With a busy wife, also giving orders. A do-gooder. I fear for you in advance, Jodi.' Jodi closed her eyes again. 'No,' she said, determined to be forbearing. After all, Carina was the one left out. It must be hurtful. 'Simon Mansion—that's the name of the agent—took me to coffee after the second interview. Mr Alec Jardene, the man-in-charge of Tarrana, is his cousin. Simon said he's very autocratic but is very very able. The people will follow his lead almost blindly—they think so much of him. And he's not married ... except maybe to his acres. His property has ten thousand acres.' 'Wait! Wait!' cried Carina, sitting up with a jerk. 'Not so fast, Jodi darling. Did you say ten thousand acres, and not married?' 'So Simon said.' There was quite a silence as Carina looked at Jodi with shuttered eyes, deep in thought. Jodi was thinking too. She felt a meanie. She knew that in a minute she was going to suggest to Carina to try for a job at Tarrara. A lot of help was wanted. This way they could halve expenses by sharing digs. Carina was all right, but—Well, they'd managed well enough as cabin-mates on the ship, specially since they'd been thrown together by the pure accident of the shipping line's booking office. They hadn't met before. But it had been Carina who was the taker, and Jodi forced into the role of giver—not out of weakness but merely for peace's sake. From there on, the matter of expenses had been important to them both. 'While we were having coffee Simon told me a lot about what's been going on at Tarrara,' she said slowly. 'For instance there was not only a need for a trained nurse— specially one who had had experience in nursing children. You know—cuts and bruises, and tonsillitis. The nearest doctor is so far away he has to give advice over the air. They've already had one urgent operation case. Of course they flew that one down here to the city—' 'Jodi,' Carina commanded, 'could you stop talking about your sort of job and tell me some more about what you're really working up to?' 'Well, they need some expert office staff too.' 'A secretary, for instance?' Jodi's eyes remained closed. 'I should think so,' she said. 'Simon did say Mr Jardene's administrative work is mountainous. He does have voluntary help but it's sporadic' Carina jumped up and almost rushed at the shared wardrobe. She began

madly pushing one frock aside after another. 'Darling!' she cried joyfully. 'I'm off to see your precious Simon. Can I borrow your blue silk dress? Oh, and the off-white shoes—' 'Don't keep him late,' Jodi said with a sigh, still not moving and still not opening her eyes. 'He's a busy man and he has a dinner date tonight.' 'With you?' Carina demanded. She sat down on the end of Jodi's bed and draped Jodi's frock across her knee. 'This really suited me that time I wore it on the ship,' she ran on. 'Remember? And Jodi, stop pretending you're going to sleep. You're really worrying for fear I dazzle that man into asking me to the dinner date too. Don't blush. I guessed. Not to worry. I won't shoot him down with fascination. Not at this stage anyway. I promise. He's safe. What's a Stock-and-Station Agent compared with ten thousand acres! Hmm! It's me for the landed gentry that is what they call them in this place.' Jodi's eyes opened at last. 'If you insist on coming to Tarrara too, Carina, I advise you to try for one of the neighbouring farmers. Not Mr Jardene. According to his cousin Simon he is not in the game. He is distant. Not overly interested in girls—English or Australian. Only in himself. And his town.' 'But someone different, like me? True-blue English with a nice complexion, and useful "talking eyes"!' Carina exclaimed as she held Jodi's blue dress against her and compared its effect with the blonde wiglet. 'Like the trumpets of Jericho difference might bring down the walls. He'd be so used to all that long-legged suntan—not that that's not a bit enviable if you're not used to it...' 'Carina,' Jodi asked, exasperated, 'did you come on a working holiday to see the world? Or to find a husband?' 'Both. Why not? What about yourself?' 'I came looking for someone all right. If ever I find him I'll let you know.' 'Good for you! You're just the same as the rest of us, pet. Somewhere round the world is a potential husband, preferably the rich and landed kind. Every girl's dream. That's why it's the with-it thing to go travelling. It's too hard to find future husbands in the crowd at home.' She hummed as she slipped her own dress over her head and began to don Jodi's blue silk. Maybe she's right, Jodi was thinking from her pillow on the bed. It's always something or someone we're looking for. Carina probably hasn't a lost brother who might magically be found. Or a lost anything at all. I don't think I'll ever tell Carina about my hunt for the 'needle in the haystack'. Or lost causes of any kind. She wouldn't understand. Her eyes flew open.

'You have my blue dress by all means, Carina,' she agreed. 'As you already have it on I can't argue. Anyway, half the time you have my nylon stockings and always my comb or my lipstick. Just keep your word though. Hands off Simon. That dinner date tonight is mine.' 'Oh ho!' cried Carina gleefully. 'You're man-snaring too! Well, that's two of us. Cross my heart, I won't even smile—well, not more than once—at your precious Simon. Even if he asks me to join you tonight I'll explain I'm going to bed—alone—to recuperate from the ship's strenuous all-night parties.' 'Yes, you do that,' Jodi agreed. 'It will give you an aura of charm and fascination. You won't, of course, mention that there were five girls to every man on the ship and the competition was tough?' Carina laughed. 'By golly it wasn't worth it either, was it? The officers were all married. Still, I did manage two or three dances a night. That was more than some people I know.' 'Some people probably couldn't be bothered with the effort,' Jodi retorted. She turned on her side, face to the wall. 'If you don't mind,' she said finally, 'I want to rest my feet and sleep. My feet ache, I feel the heat, and I'm the one who has the dinner date tonight'

CHAPTER TWO Ten days later Simon Mansion, full of directions, helpful advice, and a special smile for Jodi, put the two girls on the Overlander—a large green bus—that was to take them to Tarrara. Jodi's dinner with Simon had been a wonderful success. To Carina she later said: 'We just clicked, as if we'd known each other for ages. I suppose it's what they would call at home "Instant Friendship".' Jodi did not tell Carina that Simon had said—of Carina's interview with him —that, in spite of the disadvantage of being unaccustomed to Australian conditions, Carina had the go-getter qualities that might appeal even to Alec Jardene. Jodi thought it wiser, for Carina's sake, to keep her own counsel. 'Of course!' Simon had said, looking at the soft lights glowing in Jodi's eyes over the top of a champagne glass, 'he's not likely to greet either of you with any warmth. So be prepared. He'll half expect you to collapse with the heat, become your own patients from excessive sunburn, squeal if you see a snake, want to pat kangaroos instead of avoiding them. And probably complain loud and long when you find you have to sleep in a galvanized army hut — currently called "The Quarters". It's where all the itinerants are lodged. The people who don't belong, if you know what I mean.' Jodi, halfway through a fine dinner and thinking the champagne absolutely lovely, had only laughed back.

'How surprised he'll be when we won't collapse, squeal, or pat strange animals. As an aside to you, Simon, I hope it works out that we will belong. Just to surprise Mr Jardene.' 'Surprise, surprise indeed for cousin Alec! Except he'll know I've worded you up. He's that kind of man. He'll take a lot of convincing that the climate and conditions won't affect your efficiency.' 'Yet you are still sending us? I know it is hard to get nurses, but surely not secretaries?' 'I'm pretending it's hard to get the right kind of secretary with the right kind of skills.' Simon's eyes softened as he looked into Jodi's charming face. 'You see . . .' he added somewhat ruefully, 'even on short acquaintance I like you well enough, Jodi, not to send you out there without a companion. The two of you, being friends of such long standing, might make it easier for you.' Friends of long standing? How many other roles could Carina play? 'Thank you very much, Simon,' Jodi said more seriously as she looked at the last of the tiny diamond bubbles dying in the bottom of the champagne glass. 'Are you always kind to strangers? Or is it a national habit?' He grinned cheerfully. 'I'd like to think it's a national habit' Suddenly he was serious. 'You know you are a very pretty girl, Jodi. Could that be one reason? Hasn't everybody spent their lives telling you that before?' She shook her head. 'No. But I've always found most people pleasant. Would I sound dreadfully brash if I said you were the bestest at being nice—and kind—since I left home?' 'Not brash. Delightful. Tell me something else. If I manage to get out to Tarrara in the next week or two, will you give me a welcome?' 'I'd be absolutely thrilled. It would be like seeing someone from home—' She broke off. 'That sounds a bit "willing", doesn't it?' 'No. It sounds like a good friend. We'll shake hands on that.' Across the table, and over the bowl of flowers, they solemnly shook hands. It was almost a rite. Suddenly they laughed. 'We're having fun, aren't we?' Jodi said, picking up her glass again. 'Best fun I've had in a month. Here, let me fill your glass again. Here's to your beautiful blue eyes!' After that there had been ten days of waiting while correspondence flew backwards and forwards between Simon Mansion and Alec Jardene. Some of it literally flew, for it seemed that out there at Tarrara they conducted their business by radio, bus-mail and by aeroplane. Mandura, Mr Jardene's homestead, had its own Cessna plane. Of the contents of these radio calls,

letters and air messages, Simon Mansion omitted to tell the girls that Alec Jardene was first furious, and finally sceptical. One letter ran: What in the name of thunder and lightning do you think I can do with two English girls out here in this heat, and in these conditions! Find someone else for both posts. We're neither a Tourist Bureau nor a Refuge Home. More to the point, get a move on. We're getting desperate here. The nearest town's hospital is full with our minor complaints and injuries that could be treated here on the spot. Dr Burns from Cracker Creek is saddle-sore with overwork, and commuting. My own desk work is flowing through the door. Send better news within twenty-four hours. Alec. Simon's reply by the to-and-from plane was briefly: Sorry, old chap. No other suitable applicants available. These girls are competent and can work. An eighteenhour day will be peanuts to them. That is, if you don't keep it up too long. Simon. After this letter there was an ominous silence from Tarrara. Simon decided to put the girls on the first Overlander before Alec changed his account to some other agency, then roped in assistants from other sources. Within two days he had their tickets booked and the girls on their way. 'Jodi darling,', he begged her, 'don't let me down. That monster's Personal Property Account is worth several thousand dollars a year to me. Alas, kinship means nothing to Alec when it comes to hard-headedness.' I won't let you down, Simon. I might even show Mr Jardene something about hard work and long hours myself. For that matter ask any trained nurse working in an emergency—' 'That's a pet!' he said. Actually he was as much amused as he was relieved. He did not run a successful agency without having developed a pretty sound judgment of people's suitability and temperament in relation to jobs. It wouldn't hurt old Alec one bit to be in the wrong, for once. That is—if the feller ever admitted to being wrong! He clambered up on the bus to put the girls' hand luggage on the racks overhead. Jodi wedged herself in her seat next to Carina, then lifted her face up to wish him goodbye. Without ado Simon bent down and kissed her, lightly. 'That's for luck!' he said. 'You'll need it.' He turned and walked down the aisle and out of the bus. Carina whistled. 'My! You're a fast worker!' she said, eyeing Jodi. 'You positively asked for that kiss.' 'I didn't ask for it,' Jodi retorted, tucking her handbag behind her feet under the seat. 'I expected it.8

'Phew! Very, very cool, aren't we?' 'I don't know about you,' Jodi remarked airily. 'For me, "coolness" was part of my training. It takes years of practice, of course.' Carina stared wide-eyed at the girl beside her. Jodi leaned across her and waved to Simon from the window. Carina, still very thoughtful, also noticed that Simon seemed only to see Jodi as the Overlander moved off. 'Anyone would think I didn't exist,' she muttered. 'Oh well, wait till I hit Tarrara. They'll know I've arrived. I'll see to that. And I might do something about teaching Mr Simon a lesson one day!' The Overlander left Perth at five in the morning. Jodi stopped thinking of past or future and gave herself up to the present. Now she would see the country. Well, some of it. After all, Western Australia was ten times bigger than the British Isles . . . even if most of it was taken up with three deserts. Not one desert, but three! What a country! The bus climbed slowly up the bitumen road through the hills where trees grew tall, and where the bush was thick. In no time the trees in mass disappeared behind them and they were running—at greater speed now— through vast golden-coloured farmlands. The sky, reaching from horizon to horizon like a vast dome, was a pale, pale blue. As the hours went by the sky grew even paler—almost a glazed white—under the very hot sun. A wind from the east was gently rustling in the yellow grasses and between the spiky leaves of spindly tired bushes and strange trees. 'Wild she-oaks and banksia,' a man sitting behind them told the girls. He was delighted to discover the girls were from England and had never seen the bush before. They had never seen wheat paddocks so large that the distant fences were often out of sight. He leaned forward, his face between their shoulders and told them the names of much they saw by the roadway. 'I'm from England myself,' he explained. 'But I've been here twenty years. Guess this is my country now. You get that way, you know. See those big gums coming up? That's York gum. Means good country for growing crops. Same with jam tree—' 'Jam tree?' Jodi asked, perplexed. 'Yep. Nothing much to look at but tough as blazes. They use it for fencing posts. Lasts a lifetime. Maybe two.' 'But why jam?' 'When it's cut it smells of raspberry jam. That's why.' He roared with laughter at the incredulous expressions on the girls' faces. All the hot day they travelled on and on and on through wheat lands then sheep lands then wheat lands again. The road was a ribbon of bitumen

sometimes winding, sometimes running in a straight line to the horizon: something that was never reached. Drowsiness was over the land so that everything stood still. Nothing moved. Not a blade of grass nor a leaf on the scattered trees. The five-wired fences running beside them, held upright and taut by the thin iron-strong posts of jam wood and wandoo, never varied. Not for miles and miles and miles. Only the bus rumbled on while drowsiness crept over the passengers. Jodi looked round. Nearly everyone was nodding. 'Me too!' Jodi murmured in a muffled voice. I can't keep my eyes open.' 'Nor me,' Carina agreed. She was almost asleep before she had spoken the two words. Jodi put her head back on the head rest, pulled the wide-brimmed sun hat Simon had insisted on her buying over her face. Effortlessly she gave herself up to sleep. The timeless world of the Australian bush slept too, but also, in some strange way, it waited. It had that curious indefinable quality of silently waiting. It was dusk when they arrived at Tarrara, the last stop for the Overlander. They had come several hundreds of miles. There were only a few passengers left to dismount. Jodi and Carina were the only two girls. 'At least they won't make any mistake about who we are,' Carina whispered in an aside. 'They won't mistake any of those stockmen or farmhands for two swinging girls from swinging London.' When they finally stepped down from the bus into the helpful arms of the bus driver, they had been sitting in the one position for so long their legs wouldn't function properly. Even the afternoon 'cool-drink break' under a shady tree had not woken them up completely. 'Ouch!' Carina said, and caught Jodi's arm to steady herself. Jodi, to brace herself as well as to help, put her arm along Carina's shoulder. 'You two girls strangers here?' the bus driver asked as he carried their luggage across the track to a makeshift shed. 'Some bus depot this. Keep your heads up, you'll get used to it. Like most of us have to round here. Reckon these people here have a touch of the lion-heart. They won't leave what's left of their homes. That takes stick-at principles, eh?' "Thank you very much,' Jodi said, releasing Carina who, having rid herself of pins and needles in her legs, was now able to fend for herself. 'We'll remember your advice.' 'No thanks needed, miss. You've a job to do, I guess. I've heard about you two coming out here to give a hand. Best of luck!'

'Notch that one up,' Jodi said to Carina. 'First Simon, then the bus driver. We have two friends who welcome us.' 'Wait till that ogre Jardene arrives,' Carina muttered. 'We'll have at least something in advance.' 'At least it's on the credit side,' Jodi said wearily. Vaguely, from the moment the bus had stopped, Jodi had been conscious of a sort of fire-fly scene. The bushland stood black and sombre, very still, a sort-of backdrop to a darkling sky. Near the shed, moving towards it in a haphazard file, were the dancing lights—not of fire-flies—but of people carrying lanterns, coming this way too. Voices were calling gently in the night air; mystic hands lifted the lights and pale shadowed faces came into haloes of golden haze. "That you, Jep? Had a good trip?' 'Nick, where are you? Wake up, will you, and get Harry to carry this raking bag—' Call and reply came in the slow patient drawl of people now tired after hundreds of miles of road travel in one day: glad to be home. A woman came towards the shed and held a lantern high as she peered through the pale gold glow towards the bus. 'Would you be Miss Dean and Miss Radford?' she asked. 'Yes, I'm Jodi Dean and this is my friend Carina Radford.' 'Oh good!' There was obvious relief in the woman's voice. 'Which is the nurse? Oh yes! Of course, it's Miss Dean, isn't it? I know you must be tired but could you possibly come to the Medical Unit? It's a giant-sized caravan really. Specially equipped by the Red Cross. I suppose you've been told all that. There's a sick child brought in just half an hour ago. A roaring temperature—' 'Of course I'll come,' Jodi said. I am not permitted to diagnose sickness. Only a doctor may do that. I could give emergency treatment though. Perhaps a doctor should be called—' She broke off, realizing that there was no doctor within call. » 'Here we go,' Carina said in her ear. 'Starting work before we've properly arrived!' Jodi pretended not to hear. 'I'm Mary Roberts,' the woman said. I was a nurse before I married—oh, umpteen years ago. I've been helping at the Medical Unit since the government set it up. I'm so sorry to dump this one on you straight away.' 'Do I come too?' Carina asked, a shade petulantly. I don't know my way

round here in the dark.' 'Oh, yes, of course,' Mrs Roberts said apologetically. 'How dreadful of me not to explain. It's just that I'm so worried about that patient. Alec Jardene said he'd get someone to drive the poor child to Cracker Creek if it was necessary. We just don't know. I've forgotten so much. It's such a pity. till now I haven't done any nursing since I married. I haven't the faintest idea what's wrong with him.' Mary Roberts was what Jodi and her nursing companions used to call in moments of helter-skelter emergency, very 'frabbed and frazzled'. 'Please don't worry yet' Jodi said gently. 'I'm not really tired and I'm only too glad to come at once. You will remember children often run a high temperature for some very small thing? It is not always as serious as it is for an adult, is it?' 'Oh dear! Where is Alec?' Mary Roberts went on anxiously. 'He was here when the bus came in. He must be around somewhere. If only they'd get a big enough generator up here where the bus has to stop—so we could get some light' Mrs Roberts was middle-aged and overanxious. The girls could see this as the older woman held the lantern high, turning it here and there, in a vain search for the one person she seemed most to depend upon. 'Couldn't we go on without him?' Jodi asked quietly. "We don't really need a man—' 'Oh you'll need Alec all right. You wait and see. Everyone needs him. That's the trouble, I do wish I'd remembered more. I never did any children's nursing, you know. It's such a dreadful responsibility—' She swung her lantern high again. But in vain. A number of lanterns, like levitated glow-worms, were wending their several ways back along the tracks, away from the bus stop. Trees and bushland were one minute bright with the passing of misty magic-seeming golden light then, as the lantern bearers passed on, one here and another there, the bush was dark. And still again. And waiting. For what? Jodi wondered, unable to shut away this strange mesmeric quality of the bush. 'Does everyone walk? Are there no cars?' Carina asked. 'Oh yes, there are plenty of cars,' the agitated Mrs Roberts said. 'But they can't get a lot of them up over the mud flats this far. No room on the track. And the bus can't get any further into Tarrara—' 'That you, Mary?' a man called. 'Yes. Ron, is it? Oh, there you are! Am I glad to see you, Ron! Thank goodness you're here. Where is Alec? I was the only one here to meet these two girls.

And—' 'Hey, steady on, Mary! Not so fast!' A slow easy-going drawling voice reassured her. In the non-light Jodi could see he was tallish. His lantern, held up, revealed an oval of dark face with reflected lights darting points in his eyes. He smiled amiably at Mrs Roberts and the two girls. 'Actually Alec—as behove the tribal chief—came to meet the girls. But he went back to the Medical Unit. He saw our newcomers, arms wound round each other, literally staggering from the bus. And boy, that did it! He said, at his most lofty, he now had a couple of cripples on his hands, and what in the name of the Devil's backside was he going to do with them? Any answers, you two girls?' Ron was grinning as he spoke. His teeth flashed white— shooting lights as he lifted his lantern to look at first one girl and then the other. 'Hullo, you two!' he went on cheerfully. 'Are you crippled, weakling, or generally incapacitated as the Lord High Boss seems to think? Or was Alec just having a peeve?' 'He was having a peeve, of course,' Mary Roberts said, anxious not to upset the newcomers. 'Just like him. Consider all that as unsaid, please, girls. We all get peeves now and again. I'm a right royal one myself. Ron, will you help bring the girls' luggage back to the Unit, like a dear? I'm really worried about that Paterson child.' 'Okay, Mary! Let there be calm! Now, first things first. Which is Simon Mansion's girl friend, Miss Jodi Dean? The nurse! How-do, Nurse dear. Now this other girl must be everybody's sweetheart—Miss Carina Radford, the stenographer?' 'Not stenographer, please. The secretary!' Carina corrected him smartly. There's a difference, you know. I'm Carina and I pick and choose my sweethearts, so that leaves some triers out in the cold, doesn't it?' 'Wow! a back-talker,' said Ron. 'Good for you, Carina.' He swung his lantern to look at Jodi again. 'Do you mind if I call you Jodi?' he asked. 'It's all Christian names here.' 'No. Please do.' 'Well, Jodi girl, you're the one in chief demand right now. Appropriate apologies to Miss Carina the Secretary, of course. So listen, Jodi. Do you mind if I shove your bigger bag in the shed's lock-up for the night, and just' bring along that small hand-grip with us? Even if Mary-dear is not panicking you won't need the big stuff for tonight. You'll be kept busy with the smellingsalts for certain people who just might be carrying on a wake for Jacky Boy Paterson in advance.' 'Ron!' Mary Roberts remonstrated. "This is not the time for your particular brand of humour. You could rue those words.'

'Okay. Apologies all round. I'll lock up Carina's heavy stuff along with Jodi's. Then later—if necessary—light your several ways to righteousness—this last being to audience with one indignant Mr Alec Jardene.' 'He doesn't always talk like that,' Mary assured the girls as they stumbled their way along the faintly lit track. 'He's only showing off because you're new.' They threaded their way, one behind the other, between denuded rocks and small bushes. The two lanterns threw up heavenly mysteries of light amongst the spindly tree-branches on either side; and in amongst the fragrant bushperfume of the stick-prickly undergrowth. A vast apricot of a moon came over the edge of the eastern world and dimmed the lanterns. The bush around them was now a ghostly moon-pale wonderland. Every stick and stone cast its shadow in silvery stillness. Except for themselves, their own feet treading the leaf and gravel strewn path of the track, nothing moved. 'Oh!' Jodi breathed. 'What a glorious night! The bush seems to wait, doesn't it? Just wait, as if nothing and nobody, not even time, matters. Is it always like this?' Mary, in front, followed by Carina, did not hear, so she did not answer. 'You should have been here the day, and the night, after the earthquake hit Meckering a long way further south,' Ron said. 'And at the same time shifted the land slopes round Tarrara so the raking river flooded. Really flooded. Washed out the land!' Ron said. 'You might have thought different, Jodi. The bush can be awe-inspiring—like it is tonight. Or indifferent. Take your pick. You never know your luck. One thing for sure. It doesn't care. The bush— 1 mean.' 'In spite of having made such a poor impression on Mr Jardene, I'm glad I came,' Jodi said. Under her breath she added, So bother Mr Jardene ! Perhaps my brother, if he is still alive—and still in Australia, sees the bush like it is tonight, she thought. The track wound up a rise and there; when they reached the top, they saw down the next slope the way-off lights of the part camp, part iron army-hut settlement that was Tarrara as it now was. Over a stretch of darkened mud-flats, spread like a band between one rise and another, stretched another irregular group of lights. The outline of the town that wasn't any more! A few minutes later they reached the Medical Unit. For a caravan it was very distinctive by its size and by the Red Cross marked out in lights on its side. Mary Roberts stepped up into the caravan first, 'In you go!' Ron said to Jodi. I hope you have your bib and pinny ready. There's work for you to do.'

Somewhere nearby an engine was thrumming. Because of it there was power and light in the enormous caravan. Jodi could see three single beds in a neat row on one side. There were two cots on the other side. Everything was sparkling clean and snowy white. A man who had been sitting in a small armchair at the top end of this miniature casualty ward stood up as they all came in. Jodi, blinking in the light, looked at him. This had to be Alec Jardene! He was tall and rangy, and his dark head nearly touched the caravan roof. He had a fateful kind of face, strong-featured and with very clear, questioning eyes. This minute his bearing seemed to hold a certain frozen hostility. He was burned brown from a lifetime in the sun. His lean, spare body gave an impression of tireless strength. He wore a brown outback shirt, with its rolled sleeves, and the khaki-brown long-legged trousers that were held by a dark belt—a plaited thong of some snake or lizard's skin. He was very impressive: also a little alarming. 'You beat us back to the post, Alec,' Ron said affably. He, at least, was not awed by the inscrutable presence of this man. 'I've rescued your two girls for you,' he added. 'Sound of wind and limb and in fine fettle—just to surprise you. I absolutely guarantee it. Miss Jodi, the nurse, is the one by the cot, already on duty—by the look of it. Miss Carina Radford—the girl with the blonde hair and the bluebell eyes—is your stenographer. Beg pardon. Your secretary. Girls—This is your Boss, Mr Alec Jardene. No need to bow three times.' Alec Jardene said How-do-you-do once only, meaning that to include both. Carina was so impressed she forgot to do anything but stare. Jodi said Howdo-you-do then looked down at the child in the cot as she put her hand on his forehead. He had not even smiled. But then—Simon had warned her!

CHAPTER THREE So this is Alec Jardene! His face is like a closed book, Jodi thought. I wonder why? Her hand rested on the sick child's head. She brushed her fingers gently through the wispy hair. 'This poor little boy is very hot,' she said aloud, looking down at the patient. I think he should have only a sheet over him. No more—' Mary Roberts peered over Jodi's shoulder. 'But he has such a high temperature,' she said, anxiously. 'If we take the blanket off, mightn't he get a chill?'

Jodi lifted the chart sheet from its frame at the bottom of the cot. 'A hundred and three,' she said in a steady voice. 'That's not so unusual for a child. He might have a slight chill. It's hard to tell at this stage. It could be—' she broke off. 'Supposing it's something dreadful?' Mary said, her voice edgy with nervous anxiety. 'Pneumonia? Or polio? Something like that?' Jodi turned the child on his side. She looked at his back, his chest and his forearms. Then she looked round the caravan. She hoped Alec Jardene would go on ignoring her, and let her get on with her job. 'Where can I get a bowl of luke-warm water?' she asked Mary. 'And a sponge and towel? Sponging will help bring the temperature down.' Ron Stevens, who had been propping up the door, reached for a bowl above the sink and turned on the hot-water tap. 'But how do you know what is wrong with him?' Mary persisted, sounding a little distraught. 'Mrs Paterson is not a strong woman. She's highly-strung and has bad nerves. She's very anxious.' Jodi smiled at Mary in her easiest, yet most professional manner. 'It's routine treatment to keep sponging him down,' she said. 'If we can keep his temperature under control till the doctor gets here . . ,' 'But the doctor can't get here. Didn't anyone tell you?' Mary turned to Alec Jardene. He had not moved in any way since the girls first came in. He stood with a natural ease, quite still. Carina was sitting on one of the single beds. 'No one has told me yet' Jodi said, still cool. She took the bowl of water from Ron and rested it on the table beside the cot. 'I don't think that kid's too bad,' Ron pronounced cheerfully. 'Here, Jodi. I'll lower those cot rails for you. Mary, go home and take a stiff brandy. You're crying tired and getting nervy.' 'Alec?' Mary said in an imploring voice. 'Alec, you tell Jodi, please. Dr Burns is helping Dr Carter at Bent Tree. He's giving an anaesthetic. He can't get here tonight. There's been an accident and Dr Carter is operating.' 'That is so,' Alec said very quietly. His voice was good, Jodi thought. It had a mild drawl, and was quiet yet meaningful. 'I'm afraid, Miss Dean, you will have to be doctor, nurse and Mary's comforter. All in one. Meantime the child's mother would like some reassurance if you could possibly give it tonight' Jodi dipped the sponge in the water. She squeezed it out, then placed it on her wrist to test its warmth. Only then did she look up at Alec Jardene.

'That, I'm afraid, is not so easy, Mr Jardene,' she said. 'A nurse cannot announce a diagnosis on her own responsibility. Only a doctor can do that. However, one may occasionally make an informed guess. Mine is, that this child has a mild complaint. Children run high temperatures quite readily.' She turned to Mary Roberts. One of them at a time, she was thinking. Mr Jardene can wait for any second edition. 'Is this little boy a special relation of yours? You seem so very worried.' 'I am worried but only because it was my turn to be on duty here. I've never had experience with children. Jacky Boy's mother couldn't come in because she's just had a baby. She's not well. So nervy! She'll be beside herself with worry—' 'Yes, of course.' Jodi's voice was cool, friendly. 'Is someone going out there tonight?' She was busy slipping off the child's pyjamas now, and covering him with a towel. 'I will. I have my own car,' Mary offered readily. 'Good. Will you tell Jacky Boy's mother that the nurse thinks—till a doctor gets here to verify it—that Jacky Boy may have chicken-pox. He should be kept away from all other children for the time being.' 'Chicken-pox? But how do you know?' Mary's eyes widened. 'He hasn't any spots?' 'Yes, he has, I'm afraid. Two only. One just below the hairline. It's red, and has a tiny bead-like bubble in the centre. It's the bubble that tells the tale. Otherwise it could be anything. The other spot is here on his forearm—' Carina continued sitting on the bed near the window. She had meant to be the perfect secretary and speak only when she was spoken to—by her Boss. She had been stealing surreptitious glances at him, hoping he would look at her. Alec had not moved. He stood watching the tableau of Jodi, the sick child, and Mary Roberts, and gave no indication of his thoughts. Carina, catching the nuance of Jodi's manner, switched her attention to her room-mate. Jodi certainly was pulling something off! she thought. The centre of attention, too! 'My oh my, Jodi!' she said at length. 'You are a one for two faces, aren't you? I didn't know you had it in you. Playing it cool. Not a bit like your true self. How clever you are—' Jodi, still in her travelling clothes—no fresh make-up, nor even a comb swished through her hair—had put a second towel under the child. She was leaning over the cot, gently sponging him and smiling at him. Anyone would think he was her own, Carina thought, puzzled. 'Mary," Alec Jardene said unexpectedly, 'leave your car under the trees. I'll drive you back. You're swaying tired and we don't want you folding up.

You're too valuable to us—' 'But Alec . . .» He had made up his mind about something. Probably that Jodi was competent enough to carry on for the time being. Now he had other pressures on his time. 'Where's your bag?' he demanded of Mary. 'Leave everything else. I'll have your other things sent out tomorrow with your car.' He moved towards the door and when Mary did not instantly follow he came back to the cot-side in one stride and took her by the arm. He led her towards the door. 'You'll stay on duty for the night, Ron?' he asked over his shoulder. 'Sure. It's my night. Jodi maybe can sleep here. That is if she's willing. I'll take Carina over to the quarters.' Alec Jardene, one hand on Mary Roberts's arm, glanced briefly round the caravan. 'Goodnight to you both,' he said, nodding to the girls. Then glancing at the cot, he added, 'I hope you take good care of that little fellow, Miss Dean. We haven't had a very serious casualty yet. Not since the floods. We don't want to start with Jacky Boy.' Jodi, sponge in hand, had turned to say goodnight. Instead she stared speechless at Mr Alec Jardene. She would have thrown the water-loaded sponge at him if she hadn't had a rigorous hospital training about keeping control of oneself when on duty. But she was colour-rising angry—at his manner, and at his words. She heard his footsteps going down the caravan's steps then crunching over dead leaves and gravel as he walked away. He was saying absolutely nothing to Mary's nervous protestations. What a heartless man! she thought, still angry but hiding it well. 'Ron? What is the rest of your name please?' Carina demanded out of the vacuum of silence. 'Did you tell us, or don't I remember?' Ron delivered himself of his ready grin. 'I hardly remember myself,' he said. 'Mostly it's Christian names round here. Anyway since the floods. Very levelling affair, the floods. They tell me it's the same down south at Meckering. Only they didn't get wet, there. They got bricks, dust and rubble. No roofs to their heads though.' 'We read it all in the newspapers. At least about Meckering. I'm afraid Tarrara didn't rate a mention,' Carina said, kicking her legs to a pop-tune time.

'Well, it's this way,' Ron drawled. 'Floods, bushfires, and sand-storms are commonplace in this country. You heard about Meckering because, except for one tremor, we haven't had an earthquake for one hundred and twenty-four million years. How's that for time? Your mind boggling, Carina? That's good! Most people can't make up the time lag even in their heads.' 'Please Ron, I've travelled all day and my brain doesn't work too well after eight at night anyway. Would you mind very much telling me your full name! I did ask,' Carina begged, putting on her 'little girl' face. 'It's Stevens. Why do you want to know? What's the odds?' 'Because I need to make a distance call to you. If I use your surname you might get the message quicker.' 'Or clearer. Go ahead, Carina.' 'I'll give my message slowly so you really catch it. I... am... hungry. Maybe Jodi is too. We haven't eaten for hours. Does nobody eat out here in the bush?' 'Holy mackerel! Mary clean forgot! That's Alec for you! All efficiency until Mary begins to crumble and needs to be taken care of. Maybe he doesn't think girls need to eat. Open that door behind you, Carina honey. In there is a mini fridge, mini stove, and mini cupboard of food. I guess Mary would've put something in there earlier in the day. Let's hope anyway.' 'That's all right for Jodi, and maybe patient Jacky Boy too! For poor weary me? What about those living quarters to which you are going to escort me?' 'There'll be food there all right, of a sparse kind. They're all set up with the mini etceteras too. That's for people who come in late at night. I guess you belong in that category. Give me five minutes, and we'll be off.' Jodi had finished sponging the sick child. She remade his cot, then settled him down. 'He really is quite sick, poor little fellow,' she said gently. 'Not a whimper out of him! The effort is too great.' That's why you're left here to be night nurse,' Ron said cheerfully, as if it were this year's funniest joke to travel hundreds of miles by fast Overlander, have had little to eat since early breakfast; no chance to wash—let alone have a bath; then go straight on night duty. Jodi wondered how he could smile so cheerfully. It must be the monkey in him. Carina, seeing Jodi for the first time in her cool professional role, sensed that Jodi's quietness had been very striking. She wondered just how much impact her roommate had made on the rather impressive but massively silent Mr Alec Jardene. The thought wasn't glad-making at all. 'I'm hungry' she wailed again, still the small girl hardly done by.

'I'll be all right,' Jodi said lightly. 'You two had better go off. Where did you put my bag', Mr Stevens? I do—thank goodness—have a change of dress in it' '"Ron" to you, Miss Jodi—that is if you want me to tell you exactly where your bag is.' '"Jodi" to you, Ron . . . without the "Miss" or the "Mister". A bargain?' Her smile as she looked at him lit up her face—all tiredness gone. Her eyes had an imp in them. 'Wow!' Ron said. 'Two back-talkers, have we? They give as good as they take.' His glance roved from Jodi's face to Carina's. I almost begin to be sorry for Alec. I mean to say! Two of you! I'm warning you, though. He's wrapped in TNT, when not wrapped in a girl called Annabelle Stacy. You can't win. Just confine your wiles to me, both of you!' 'My overnight bag, please Ron?' Jodi said with a smile. I can't see it anywhere.'. 'And who might a girl called Annabelle Stacy be?' Carina asked, her eyes slightly narrowed. 'You wait and see for yourself,' Ron said flatly, not to be drawn. 'I'll put both the bags in that antiseptic cupboard by the door. You're not allowed to bring your germs with you in this up-to-date aseptic mobile hospital. You can't even carry them in. Not willingly, anyway. So things brought in have to go in that cupboard. Got the message, girls?' Jodi really laughed. 'Clear and simple,' she replied. 'Nutty!' Carina said scornfully. 'The germs could hatch out between the door and the cupboard.' Ron scratched his head. 'Golly!' he remarked. I bet the Red Cross never thought of that.''

The night was long for Jodi because she was physically very tired. She dared not let herself fall asleep for she knew that to bring down Jacky Boy's temperature she had to sponge him every hour. By four o'clock in the morning her efforts were rewarded. The thermometer now registered Jacky Boy's temperature as ninety-nine. Near enough to normal to signify that whatever was the child's complaint, it was not serious. Once or twice, for coolness' sake, Jodi sat on the doorstep and watched the huge brilliant stars spattering the blue-black sky. Everything was so uncannily silent as if they— the bush, the trees, and the stars were listening. To what? she wondered. It was all so strange. Yet beautiful. She was glad to be so impressed by the splendour of the sky. It stopped her thinking of anything else. It stopped her feeling so taken aback by Alec

Jardene's indifference to herself—newcomer on his own staff. And to Carina, his secretary, too. He had said not a word about any meal, any rest, any hope that she might have a trouble-free night with a sick child. Callous brute! she thought. I think I'm going to hate him —which is a pity! I wanted so to like everything and everyone. And yet—? With daylight everything changed. Ron Stevens arrived—and this brightened the world. He was very chivalrous to begin with. He boiled eggs, and made tea and toast for her breakfast while she took a shower. She dressed in one of her plain white uniforms with its handy-sized pockets. She had washed her short hair under the mini shower in the recess at the back of the ward. She even dared to give her morale a booster-shock by putting on a fine layer of foundation cream, then added two nice curved sweeps of lipstick on her lips and a careful smudge of eye-shadow. 'Just to give the bush something to look at,' she told herself. 'It's the bush's turn to be surprised now.' Jacky Boy's temperature had moved up two points again but Jodi knew this was to be expected. He now had several more spots—each with its little water globule in the centre. 'Chicken-pox!' she said exultantly. 'I thought so. Alas, I can't insist so— without a doctor's diagnosis. Absolutely not done! Not done in the Australian bush, nor in high places in London hospitals. A nurse is not a doctor!' The boiled eggs, tea and toast were down, Ron and Jodi were washing up together at the small sink when the sound of a car came thrashing up the leaves and dust, then braked to a sudden stop. Footsteps came striding across the gravel and up two steps. The wire-screen door opened. Ron was shaking clean water from the washed teapot. Jodi had a tea-towel and plate in her hands. She half knew who had come. There'd been something about that shutting of the car door. And the thunder of authority's footsteps crushing down leaves and breaking fallen twigs. Alec Jardene came through the doorway. The wire-screen door swung to behind him. He still did not smile. Jodi couldn't help wondering if he could smile. 'Good morning!' he said, looking at her straight across the intervening space. 'Good morning!' Jodi replied, carefully courteous. She hadn't remembered his voice from the night before. He had said so little and that in a perfunctory way.

Now, this morning, she liked it. It was a firm, yet somehow a quiet voice. It was really very attractive. He looked freshly showered and his khaki clothes were spotless and pressed. He was very striking. Jodi, polishing the plate, felt as though something indefinable had set up strange vibrations amongst her heart strings. This was very disconcerting. 'I must be zomby!' she said under her breath. 'How go things this morning, Alec?' Ron asked. They go as usual—so far,' Alec replied. 'I'm likely to be thankful for the secretary Simon sent up. She seems efficient around the office. Very methodical.' 'Bet she didn't call that iron and weather board frame-up an "office",' Ron said with a grin. 'It has the equipment,' Alec reminded him coldly. He had been looking down at Jacky Boy in his cot while he'd been speaking. 'How is the boy this morning, Miss Dean?' he asked. 'His temperature is up two points. But he's better—' Alec's eyebrows went up. 'A higher temperature? Yet he's better?' he asked, looking straight at her. His eyes were clear to the point of hardness now. Very alert. 'This would be the second, or possibly the third day of his illness,' Jodi explained. The temperature should go down, and stay down on the third or fourth day. If he were very ill, or even likely to be very ill, the temperature would be much higher now. And stay up there.' 'What do you think is wrong with him now?' Jodi looked down at Jacky Boy. The thoughtful, tender look came back into her face. She was trying to think what was the right thing to say to this man. The silence was almost ominous. Only Ron was amused. 'That's a tough one to put to her in her first twenty-four hours, Alec,' he said. 'She hasn't had a night's sleep yet. Must have been up by four o'clock yesterday morning to catch the bus at five.' 'I'm aware of that,' Alec said. His eyes were still on Jodi's face. 'You do or you don't know what is wrong with the child, Miss Dean?' he went on. 'If you don't know, why do you say he is better?' She looked up and met Alec's eyes straight on.

'I was worrying about a point of professional ethics,' she said quietly. 'I'm reasonably sure of what is wrong with Jacky Boy, but I'm also reasonably sure an Australian doctor would take the same view as the doctors I worked with in England. That is—a nurse is regarded as not competent to make a diagnosis. She must follow medical instructions: not promote them.' 'If you are not capable of forming a mere opinion,' Alec said, 'why did you apply for this position? An Australian nurse is prepared, by familiarity with the conditions in the bush. She has to act, and does act on her own responsibility. It is not the law. But it's the custom of the country in isolated areas.' Jodi bit her lip. She was dismayed, and angry too. Also feeling tired. She brushed her fingers through Jacky Boy's hair again, hoping to muster courage. 'Speak up, Jodi,' Ron encouraged. He was smiling as if really to give her courage: but enjoying himself. 'If Alec wasn't here in person, I'd let you know he's really quite a kind-hearted bloke behind the smoke screen. You'd be surprised—' Jodi lifted her chin and looked Alec straight in the eyes again. 'Jacky Boy has chicken-pox,' she said with finality. 'Of that I'm reasonably sure. I cannot find any entry in the Admissions Book recording his condition on arrival at the Unit. I think a rule on that applies to all countries. Anyone, doctor or nurse, needs that information before making a pronouncement.' Ron all but whooped for joy at Jodi's stand. From behind Alec's back he gave her the V sign for Victory—something that went for both countries. 'This is a Medical Unit, containing some hospital equipment in the case of emergency. That's all,' Alec said, very laconic now. 'We don't keep a book of rules' He turned to Ron Stevens. 'An epidemic will cause pandemonium all round. We haven't the service facilities to enforce quarantine measures,' he said. 'Get Mrs Mathews across to my office as soon after noon as possible, Ron. She'll know who Jacky Boy has been playing with. In the meantime, if she doesn't know, tell her to find out. Tell her why, and tell her I want Jacky Boy's mother, the baby, and anyone who's been there in the last day or two quarantined. I want her opinion as to whether this can be organized. Get cracking will you?' 'Right, Boss,' Ron said. 'But—' 'But what?' 'Do you reckon you, me and Mrs Mathews have a hope of keeping those people out there along the creek quarantined? They'll want a doctor's order—' 'They have mine for the time being,' Alec said flatly. He turned to Jodi. 'I'll get one of the women over to stay in the Unit while you take some time off. I'll

send Miss Radford to show you your quarters and the general Amenities Block. I'll also send out an SOS for the doctor up the line. Chicken-pox may be a mild children's disease, but quarantining people already making shift in near intolerable conditions seems, on the face of it, impossible.' 'Jacky Boy's case is not severe enough to be classified an emergency,' Jodi said, very cool. 'No. Pandemonium among the town mothers and children is, however, an emergency. When you've been here long enough to see Tarrara you'll understand that. Morale isn't self-perpetuating unfortunately.' He had reached the door as he spoke. He turned to Jodi again. His voice was just that little bit softer. Almost, but not quite, regretful. 'See that you get some rest. The women's committee will arrange a roster amongst themselves for those who are able to take over from you. That will give you some time off. Mary Roberts is practically knocked out. Our other volunteer has commitments in her own family at the moment. She'll be on call in a day or two—a Mrs Lome. She too is a trained nurse.' He went through the door, letting the screen door fall to behind him. Once again his footsteps were heard flattening down all that crept and crawled in the ant world beneath fallen bark and dead leaves. Gravel pebbles scattered. to right and left as he neared his car. The engine started up and he was gone as fast as he had come. Jodi caught Ron's eyes. 'Now you know!' he said sagely. 'You have been warned!' 'Yes,' she agreed. 'But why does he have to be like that? Is it because I'm English-trained and therefore he has taken it for granted I won't understand everything Australian?' 'That's about it. You'll see why when you have a look at what was the town. And what has to be done to keep the place barely going. Hard-headed and cold-hearted efficiency is at a premium with Alec out of sheer necessity. Right now, anyway.' Jodi turned to Jacky Boy's cot and put her hand on the child's forehead again. He opened his eyes and gave her the kind of seraphic smile that made her— because of her tiredness, of course—want to cry. 'Funny,' she said, 'but in spite of it ... I rather like him. That is, when I wasn't positively disliking him. I wonder why? Look at this little fellow, Ron. Isn't he an angel!' 'You wait and see, Jodi,' Ron said lugubriously, looking down at Jacky Boy. 'Talking about Alec, Jodi—everybody respects him. But not too many talk about it. He's got that extra something that you might call personality. And he's probably the most enterprising and efficient farmer in the district. That's

why the town voted him in charge while things were straightened out after the flood. He didn't put himself forward, I can tell you that. What's more—' 'Yes? What more?' 'He's the only one who could keep the peace here. He carries authority of his own to deal with the shire and the government about who gets what in relief money and insurance. All that sort of jazz. People's losses have to be assessed. People have to be satisfied, as well as temporarily fed and bedded down: the kids get some schooling.' 'I begin to understand . . .' Jodi said thoughtfully. 'Just wait till you see what the people are living in right now, Jodi. Alec has one heck of a job. He's keeping peace. Ruthlessly sometimes. Cutting red tape where he can. By the way, if Carina is good at her job, she's about the best thing that's happened to him. Maybe he'll have time to breathe and sound-off like a human being again.' Jodi laughed. 'You put it in such a colourful way, Ron—' 'Good for you to notice it. By the way, call Alec by his name. Just Alec. He won't even notice because that's what everyone calls him. Kids and all. Always have—even before the floods.' 'Well ... I'll try...' Ron walked to the door and peered down the track. 'Whacko for you,' he exclaimed. 'Here come a couple of the ladies to relieve you. Helter-skelter comes that doll Carina trying to catch up. She'll show you where and what round the town. Once you've seen it you'll know why Alec Jardene has much on his mind plus brand new creases on his forehead. You shoot through, Jodi, and I'll follow later with your heavier baggage. Good eating!' 'I'd rather hear you say "good sleeping", Ron,' Jodi laughed. I need it desperately. But thank you.' 'You're welcome, lady,' Ron called after her. 'And some more any time you ask!'

CHAPTER FOUR Jodi and Carina stood on the slight rise at the bend of the creek and looked down at the scene of disaster. 'Oh! How terrible!' Jodi said. 'Yes . . . you sort-of imagine it, don't you? But you really need to see it to believe it' 'Hardly a house upright. So many completely flattened. What's that one

standing skew-whiff over there on a corner? The big one?' 'That, they tell me, was the pub! The one place that didn't really fall flat on its face. One of the ladies told me last night that the men wanted to use if as usual, but Alec Jardene forbade it. He even installed special constables to guard it. The people were pretty mad but the next thing Alec did was to see that an extra large army hut, double size, was put up as a temporary pub. That quieted them down.' Jodi said nothing as she looked down the once tree-lined creek to where, lower down its course, it became a bedraggled graveyard for uprooted trees: a dead, mud-caked amalgam of grasses, leaf debris, and bush wreck. A fallen mesh of fence wire that once had marked the boundaries of some paddock was rusting in the sunshine. Further along, and even lower down stretched a vast mud-flat where fallen or lean-over houses stood, each marking its own site by a mound of rubble, timber and sheets of iron. Here and there beside some mounds of house wreckage stood pieces of broken furniture, a leaning piano, sideboards, kitchen tables, book-cases, chairs, broken beds. Where to store these wretched relics must be a fair-sized problem by itself, Jodi thought. Along the upper slopes on either side of the creek stood an incredible assortment of tents, caravans, iron-roofed army huts, mud-covered motor cars, and line upon line of salvaged furniture! 'Behold Tarrara!' said Carina. 'It's the strangest sight,' Jodi said slowly. 'Like a battlefield after bombardment...' 'A country town after a flood!' Carina said. 'All the same—from the little I've seen—it's quite fun in a way. Everyone is living picnic-like. It's sort-of free. Except some people are tired of it already. They don't feel very brave or enduring any more.' 'No one lost their lives?' 'Appears not. Oh well, come on, Jodi. I'll show you the Amenities Block. They've quite a good canteen. Then I'll have to scatter after my Boss. Everyone's friendly so they'll show you what and where. As for my Boss?' Carina kissed her hand to the air. 'On second meeting I find he has something. But really something. Now hands off, Jodi darling. I've bagged him. I intend to put my mind to higher things than typing invoices and filing requests and complaints. My fingers can attend to all that. But my head? Now, Jodi—just what my head is thinking, and scheming —you'd never guess. Nothing but the best for Carina. The Number One Man, for sure.' Jodi had heard Carina talk like this so often on the ship coming out from England about one ship's officer or another, she hardly paid attention. 'Ten thousand acres . . . not to mention the tough out-backishness of his

general-in-charge manner,' Carina went on, 'can do quite a lot for the beats of a waiting and willing heart—' 'Carina darling, you are mixing your metaphors. A tough outback Australian is not also an army general.' 'How do you know? I bet when they went to war their army generals came right bang out of places like Tarrara.' 'You could be right. But let's go and find where I sleep. Or would you rather carry me—insensible from exhaustion?' 'Just you walk, my good girl. These people are a bit jittery for fear we're used to soft living and won't know how to cope with their weather. They say it's alternate heat and cold, drought and flood.' 'We'll have to show them, won't we? I could brace up by remembering a few of the hospital wards I've walked.' 'Come on, Jodi. Hurry! I have to see my man before I go off for the rest of the afternoon.' 'Lead on. I'll follow. Am I supposed to guess that by "your man" you mean Mr Alec Jardene?' 'The same. I've started working at keeping it that way too. And you don't call him "Mister". Nobody does. It's either "Alec" or "Boss". You can take your choice.' 'What was your choice?' 'Oh, "Alec" of course. It's more meaningful. Actually I don't call him anything when someone else is around. Something to do with my training, I expect. I feel a bit awkward—' 'If I know you reasonably well, Carina, you won't feel awkward for long,' Jodi said with a laugh. 'I suppose you're right. Can you find your way back to the quarters? I'll see you there as soon as I get my programme for tomorrow's work. My sweetie has given me the rest of the day off. To get my bearings and settle in— the dear man said.' The two girls were to share a room in a section of army barracks loaned by the army itself. 'Modernized,' Carina had pointed out. 'We have our own shower and toilet, thank heaven! It's pretty ghastly outside but look at all the white paint and chromium inside! It's wondrous clean too—considering it's fresh on loan from the army.' 'A shower!' Jodi exclaimed in wonder. 'But where does the water come from?' 'Jodi! Don't dare ask anyone about water. They almost go purple with rage if the subject is mentioned. The flood brought enough water to carve a canal

right across Australia. To add injustice to injustice—if I can put it that way— the only important town facility undamaged was the reservoir miles out at a place called Tarrara Rock. The water-mains held too. Everything else, including the power house and the electricity, went bang bang along with the police station, the bank, the hall, lots of houses, and the school. They're running the town electricity on generators for the time being.' 'Uncontaminated water in a situation like this is a merciful boon, if they only knew—' 'Darling!' Carina said, checking her hair and lipstick in the mirror over the dressing-table. 'If you're going to be all professional comment and good advice, keep it for that hospital-on-wheels—' 'Medical Unit,' Jodi corrected her. There you go again! Being professional! Oh well, I suppose it is useful to know things, and names. I have to impress my man with my efficiency my way.' 'Now it's my turn to grumble, Carina. Don't call him "my man". One day he'll overhear you.' Carina, satisfied with her general appearance, tossed her head as she went to the door. 'Sleep well, pet!' she said. 'I'll call when it's time to eat. And talking about names, Jodi. The day my Boss hears me calling him "my man" will be the day I mean him to hear it'. 'I bet it will! You're a great schemer, Carina. Part of "secretarial" duties, I suppose.' Jodi sank down on the bed that was obviously hers. It hadn't yet been slept in. She kicked off her shoes and undid the buttons of her uniform. 'Meantime, I'm three-quarters asleep,' she said. 'Please shut the door softly, dear. Behind you, of course.' Hours later, Carina's return woke Jodi. 'Hop up quickie,' she commanded. 'Me for the shower first while you're shaking up. It's dress-up night for you and me, Jodi love. The Boss will be in to dinner.' 'Is it dinner-time? Have I slept all that long? And whose Boss will be in to dinner?' 'My Boss, of course. I'll explain as we go. To begin with —the so-called extra people like you and me—and those without even makeshift homes—eat in the canteen over at the Amenities Block. Capital letters, as it's some place. When the Boss is present it is regarded as an extra special night. The ladies tell me the food's special and they put flowers on the tables. All for him!'

'Oh no!' Jodi protested. She was still bemused by sleep. She crawled off her bed and stared at the two big travelling cases standing side by side just inside the door. 'Hurray! Ron's brought our big luggage. Heavens! If he put them there himself he must have seen me asleep. Probably with my mouth open and an awful lot of leg showing too." Carina had stripped off her clothes and was already behind the shower panel. She had to raise her voice above the sound of water tumbling down on her. 'That'ud be the best cementing of real friendship I can think of,' she called. 'So intimate. Jodi, you'll have a kind of unmentionable secret between the pair of you. Stolen glances from Ron, and a demure kind of fake-modesty from you. Whacko for a love affair in no time! That is, if you play it right. Oh! But I forgot Simon. No, definitely I don't recommend even a passing love affair with Ron Stevens. Simon's already on the marry-go-round.' Jodi, as she pulled out a new set of underclothes and a light Terylene dress from her case, did not answer. Ever since she had found herself to be a cabinmate to Carina she had listened to strictures on the techniques of winning some men, and disposing of others. She had learned to take so many of them with a grain of salt. But not all of them! The canteen, more elegantly called the Dining Unit by some, was part of the Amenities Block. It was unlike anything Jodi had ever seen. The building was very large, almost hall-like in size. It, too, was a borrowed army unit. Right down the middle was an enormous dining table, made up by a series of smaller trestle tables joined together end to end. This was covered with white plastic tablecloths. Parallel with this main table were smaller side tables literally covered with plates carrying a wonderful assortment of salads, fruits, iced cakes, scones, biscuits and cheese. The variety was astonishing, and so much of it looked home-made, or home-grown. All was so fresh and luscious. There were bowls of wild flowers set up here and there. Were the flowers because the Boss was coming in to dine? Jodi wondered where everything had come from. Then the penny dropped. Of course, of course! Tarrara was in a large-scale farming district. Obviously the farmers' wives near and far made their regular contributions to the food cupboards of the homeless: and to the dinner tables of those who had to live in the 'Quarters Community'. And special treats were on when the Boss was expected to dine in. The two girls stood inside the doorway, a little at a loss now. Even Carina was uncertain. 'I wonder where we sit?' she whispered. 'It wasn't set up like this at breakfast or lunch.' Two ladies broke away from a group at the end of the room and came

sweeping up the considerable distance of planked floor. Their smiles were full of friendly welcome. 'Oh there you are!' one said. 'You must be Jodi the nurse? You've no idea how glad we are to see you. We've been almost desperate at times. You.know— children playing round their old ruined homes are such a worry. They come in with rusty nail punctures in their hands, and cuts on their feet. We've had one broken arm already. We've wanted a nurse full-time, so badly. We had a deputation to Alec about it. Oh I haven't introduced myself. I'm Ann Mathews. For the time being I'm Secretary of the Women's Relief Auxiliary.' She shook hands with Jodi, talking so fast Jodi did not. have time to say Howdo-you-do or Thank you. Mrs Mathews was now beaming on Carina. 'We did meet at lunch-time, didn't we? You didn't tell me your friend was such a delightful person, Carina. You've no idea the sheer joy of having someone young and fresh: and who smiles.' She stopped to take in another breath. 'The real pleasure of new faces!' she exclaimed. 'You do know what I mean, don't you? We're getting so bored with one another in this mess of a town. People are beginning to get so cranky. Alec's quite worried about it. He has a positive thing about morale.' Carina's smile was meant to enchant but Jodi's became a little embarrassed because she knew chicken-pox was likely to be the next blow. 'Jenny dear,' Mrs Mathews was going on quickly, giving no one time to put a word in edgeways, and now addressing the other lady who had come forward with her. 'You've met Carina, haven't you? Well, this is Jodi. The nurse, you know. Isn't it heavenly to think we don't have to bother any more about cuts and bruises and panics. Jodi has come to attend to all that for us.' 'Yes, yes!' the lady called Jenny replied . . . looking a little glum, all the same. 'But it doesn't help us if we have an outbreak of chicken-pox, does it? I mean we ought to have had someone before—' 'Now, Jenny dear, we're not to worry Jodi on her first night,' Mrs Mathews admonished. 'Besides, Alec is taking care of everything. Just leave it to him. Jacky Boy is to go into quarantine—his mother and baby brother too. That is, till the doctor gets here. Then we'll know for sure. We mustn't worry in advance.' Jodi smiled at both the ladies, not quite certain what to say. So Alec Jardene didn't accept her diagnosis, after all! Wait till the doctor gets here. Well, he was quite right, of course. She was not a doctor. Even as Mrs Mathews talked she was shepherding the girls down the long room towards the far end. 'We've put you up here next to Alec for tonight,' she said. 'He's having dinner

here. It gives us all such a lift when he does come. Generally it's the nights he goes back to the Office instead of straight out to Mandura. That's his property, you know. The best in the district. You're today's visitors so you must have the places next to him. We keep them spare, you know, in case some personage comes up from the city, or from out of town.' 'Personage?' Jodi asked, smiling her best. 'You don't regard us as personages, I hope. We're on the staff, the same as all you people.' 'Oh no, you are not the same as us!' Mrs Mathews said, off on another flight of words, and tapping Jodi's arm lightly. 'You wait and see, my dear. Everyone does some voluntary work. For tonight we don't have any Members of Parliament, Mayors, or Heads of Relief Committees to dinner. Not even any journalists, thank God. So you must have the Welcome Places. Don't you think that is rather a lovely name? Jenny—Mrs Barron I mean—thought it up herself. Welcome Places! We hoped it might make people feel welcome.' 'It's a lovely name,' Jodi said, smiling with real pleasure at the thought of it. 'It's a gorgeous name,' Carina echoed. That's good! Now here we are, my dears.' Mrs Mathews turned and looked from one girl to the other in a considering way. 'Now which ought I to put on Alec's right? And which on his left?' 'Supposing I sit at his right hand,' Carina suggested, giving one of her best 'little girl' smiles. 'I'm his secretary and I could sort-of reintroduce Jodi to him, couldn't I? She's only met him for a few minutes, last night and early this morning.' Jodi was only too happy to give Carina the honours. Actually she preferred to sit on the left, even below the salt, if necessary. The very thought of such close contact—for the duration of a whole meal—with Alec Jardene— was threatening indigestion before she'd eaten a morsel. 'Yes of course!' Mrs Mathews agreed with Carina. 'You have a very special relationship with him, don't you, my dear? A secretary is a man's right hand, isn't she?' 'Sometimes the right, and the left too,' Carina said cheerfully as she took the chair she was offered. 'Only we never let them know that. Man's ego must be spared too much buffeting. Am I right?' 'Oh quite, my dear! How very clever of you!' The older lady appeared just a shade uncertain at Carina's declaration of purpose. 'Jodi dear,' she went on quickly, 'you sit over there, will you? That's right. We'll give Alec a few minutes and if he doesn't come in by then we won't wait. He forbids it, you know. You'll have a plate of hot meat brought to you. Then you go to the side table and select your own salads and what-nots yourself. That all right?' Mrs Mathews, with Jenny Barron bringing up the rearguard, suddenly

seemed to have a very straight back as she walked away. Carina made a small grimace at Jodi. 'Wow!' she said. 'Did I guff that one about man's ego, do you think?' 'I don't know,' Jodi said uncertainly. But she did wish Carina hadn't said it, all the same. 'I suppose Mrs Mathews is quite a somebody round these parts,' Carina went on in a lowered voice. 'What did she call herself? Chairman of something or other?' 'The Secretary of the Women's Relief Auxiliary,' Jodi said. 'Which probably means she works at other people's troubles like a Trojan. I've seen the auxiliary committees working in the hospitals—' 'Jodi darling. Please! The whole of this place may be down on the ground like a spilt pack of cards. But it's not all one great hospital.' Jodi didn't answer that one. She had turned her head to glance at the departing figures of Mrs Mathews and Mrs Barron. Alec Jardene had just come in. He stood by the door, a tall dark shadow against the outside light. Beside him was a very lovely young woman. She was medium height and had dark hair. It was almost jet black, and was beautifully groomed in quite the latest style. She and Alec Jardene were talking now to Mrs Mathews who had just arrived in time to welcome them. Even a half-witted person, Jodi thought, could see the three were very close friends, and could also see that the girl was very vivacious and very charming. As they laughed and talked together Alec Jardene, seemed suddenly so different. The sternness was gone out of his face. In its place was an easy smile, so natural and in its own way quite devastating. It lit up his face and changed his whole personality. What a smile! Jodi thought. She wondered why it affected her. She was supposed to be not liking him very much. Carina too had seen the latest arrivals. 'Is this a personage, do you think, Jodi?' she whispered. 'The girl, I mean. She's dressed for importance, isn't she? That blue buttoned-and-belted linen dress is much too suave for Tarrara. I wonder who she is? Alas, alas— we have competition! And how!' 'You may have competition, I don't,' Jodi said firmly. 'If she is some important visitor, hadn't we better move our places? Somewhere below the salt, I imagine. We are employees. Nothing grand about us.'

Carina for once had lost her facility for the quick thought. She looked unlovingly at the row of empty seats-on either side further down the table. She had a few hard thoughts at the back of her mind about Jodi too. What made Jodi think that up—about moving! 'Mightn't it be a bit obvious?' she parried. I vote we stay. We were here first.' 'See the indecision in Mrs Mathews's face. She's looking up here with a whopping big frown on her brow. Come on, Carina. Quick, but gracefully—as if we want to sit further down and have changed our minds—' 'Oh . . .! Blow you, Jodi! If it was someone old and lame, I wouldn't mind. But just look at that hunk of grace and beauty! Why does she have to have everything— including Alec Jardene?'

CHAPTER FIVE 'We move,' Jodi said with decision. 'We can take those places half-way down the table. First let's make for the salads over at one of the side tables. It won't look so obvious then.' 'Okay,' Carina agreed reluctantly. 'On the count of three let's depart saladwards. One, two, three—' Both girls rose, put their chairs back in place and walked across the room to the side table. Over an enormous bowl of lettuce Jodi stole a glance at Mrs Mathews's face. It was a very relieved face. 'We did the right thing, Carina,' she whispered. 'Miss Lovely in the linen dress must be a personage for sure. She wasn't expected, so poor Mrs Mathews made a mistake putting us up next to the head of the table.' Carina did not reply. She was busily eyeing the splendid variety of salads before them. Besides, she was still cross with Jodi! There was a pile of plates on the table and the girls took a plate each. Then they spent a choosy time selecting diced pear, sliced pineapple, vegetables in mayonnaise, and cold mint-trimmed potato salad. Suddenly Mrs Barron was beside them. 'Oh my dears! Someone should have brought you your meat dish first. Or there's always fish. You do eat meat, or fish?' She was quite harassed with anxiety for fear the girls had not had sufficient attention. 'Yes, we take both, or either,' Jodi said with a smile. 'Actually we thought we'd like to do a little self-help right from the start. Do you mind if we sit further down the table? We might meet some of the town people that way. That is—'

Mrs Barron patted her arm. 'You are dear sweet girls, both of you.' For the first time she smiled. A nice smile too. She was really a very gentle anxious sort of person. Jodi and Carina, having taken all the salads they wanted, followed Mrs Barron to their new places half-way down the table. One on either side: facing each other. People were beginning to come in now. All sorts of people. There were middle-aged men and women. Young men and women. Some teenagers, and last but most welcome, Ron Stevens. 'Pleased to see me?' he asked Jodi. He found a vacant chair one place down on her side of the table. 'I am the one who is very pleased to see you,' Carina interrupted cheerily. 'Jodi always keeps an open mind. But she was pleased to see her luggage delivered at the quarters. Thanks to you, dear Ron. Hence her nice dress too.' 'Thank you. Bows all round.' Jodi smiled as she returned Ron's grin. 'You're looking very attractive yourself, Carina,' Ron beamed. Clearly he appreciated how prettied-up Carina had made herself. 'I'll tell you two girls something about this town. You'll be smash hits. You watch it, and see. Most of the town girls have gone to Perth to get jobs. You'll have all the manpower paying you attention.' His grin would have warmed anyone's heart, Jodi thought. The shake of his shoulders as he laughed would have consoled any girl for having to give up a top place at the long table. 'All that manpower wasted? A nice change from the ship,' she said aloud as Carina passed her the bread. "There the odds were about six to one against, since manpower was in short supply.' 'Well, Miss Jodi, you can have Ron for a start,' Carina said, being generous all of a sudden. I have other game to hunt.' 'You have already mentioned it. But what about the personage in the blue linen dress? She's sitting in the place you once had! On the right hand of Might and Majesty— Alec Jardene. Don't look now, Carina, but she's smiling right into his eyes. In a most bewitching way too.' 'I'm about to look, Jodi. She might have something she can teach me. You never can tell, can you?' 'I'll never believe it,' Ron said, his grin wider than ever. 'Please excuse me, chicks, while I go fetch me some salad.' 'Excused!' Carina said, very off-hand now. Someone passed a plate of fried chicken over Jodi's shoulder. She turned to

thank the bringer. It was a young boy, perhaps eleven or twelve years old. 'You like chicken, Miss?' he asked. He had a freckled face and a bright urchin smile. 'Can bring roast lamb if you'd rather—' This will do beautifully, thank you. But would you help me in another way?' 'Sure, sure. Ask away. That's what I'm here for.' 'Please could you tell me—do we put the salads from the salad plate on to the one with the chicken? Or the chicken on to the salad plate? You see, we're strangers—' 'You mean because you come from England? I could tell that right away, but Mrs Barron told me anyway. Well, I guess we all do the same kind of thing. Just shove on as much salad as you want with the chicken, and leave the rest till afterwards. Nobody'll mind. All the people here are glad you came so I guess you can do anything you like. Everyone else does anyway.' Thank you very much. That's very helpful. I promise not to spill gravy on the cloth.' 'Gee!' the boy said consolingly. 'Are you scared as all that? You won't be the first to spill something by a long shot. So quit worrying!' 'Lovely advice!' Jodi's smile had grown big. She'd been joking but the boy had taken her seriously. I hope we meet again.' 'We sure will. I help here every third night, but I sweep the grass and leaves round the Medical Unit every morning before school. I'm a runner too. That means I take messages. Everybody does something to help. Mr Jardene worked out a timetable with Mrs Barron and Mrs Mathews. No slackers allowed—' 'I'm sure not. Thank you for helping us.' 'Not to worry. We were all asked to make you and your friend feel at home. You're important people and not strangers, you know.' 'Did Mr Jardene give you those instructions?' Jodi asked, surprised. 'We're not very important at all. It's just that we're newcomers. We're not sure of the customs.' 'Oh, Mr Jardene doesn't give all the orders. He tells other people like my mother and Mrs Barron and Mrs Mathews to give the orders for him. So long for now. Oh, by the way—my name's Matthew but you and your friend can call me Matt, if you like. All my friends do that.' 'Good. I'll call you Matt and you call me Jodi. Will that be all right?' The boy put his head near Jodi and whispered, 'What's the other pretty lady's name?'

'After that compliment I'm sure she'll be delighted if you call her Carina,' 'Good. Well, tell her to hold everything. I'll be back in a minute with some chicken for her.' 'I'll tell her,' Jodi whispered back, very solemn. 'I'll let you into a secret. She likes to have young men pay her attention. Shell be very pleased to see the chicken. And to see you bringing it, Matt.' The boy turned away, ducked neatly under the arm of a slim brown-faced man just coming towards the table, and made for the furthermost reaches of the kitchen. Jodi had never seen a 'community' meal served like this before. The man sitting beside her didn't speak till towards the end of the meal. Once he'd started talking he lost his bush-shyness. He told her he was Jeff Casson, the postmaster of what once had been 'old' Tarrara. He explained to her, and to Carina, how the Services people of the town, though houseless, had to remain in temporary accommodation to provide the usual services. He pointed out the policeman, the local magistrate, two shire councillors, a clergyman, the workers in the Health Department who had to attend to all the temporary drains, sanitation, and supervise the general clearing up. 'Of course,' he added, 'there's a whole gang of secondhand dealers and demolishers' agents come up to Tarrara for the pickings. That's the group right down at the end of the table. Alec Jardene keeps 'em lined up and in order, I can tell you. Everyone coming into the town is checked. They're asked for a "voluntary" dollar a head towards the relief as they come in. No one refuses.' 'Mr Jardene must be a very strong-minded person.' 'You're telling me! He runs everything and everybody. But we elected him. He's very efficient. He's respected by everybody and liked by most. Not a good man to cross though. That is, if you happen to be wrong.' 'I have already met him. I thought he was very impressive, but lacking in . , . well, it's hard to name. Would it be sympathy?' 'Well, maybe—' The postmaster lowered his head a little. He also lowered his voice. 'That scraping of chairs up to the top end means he and Miss Stacy are leaving. Her people are big guns round the district too. Watch it— they're coming this way.' Jodi thought the postmaster's caution was the littlest bit funny, as if she and everyone else had to be on good behaviour while the 'official party' passed. Footsteps the light quick ones and the strong purposeful ones—came down the length of the room. Carina was all eyes. All smiles too. She had a position of advantage because she was facing the out-going party.

Jodi couldn't resist turning her head. As she did this, the very pretty girl in the blue linen dress walked on towards the place where Mrs Mathews was sitting. Alec Jardene, at that moment looking towards the table, met Jodi's eyes square-on. He stopped by her chair. 'Miss Dean,' he said in a voice quite impersonal. His eyes were faintly tired as if his day had been a hard one. I would like to see you presently,' he said. 'In my office. Could you spare the time?' 'Yes, of course.' 'In half an hour? One of the boys will show you the way.' 'Oh, I'll show her,' Carina volunteered quickly. I know where the office is, of course—' 'Thank you, but no,' he said. 'You are off duty. Young Matt will probably be delighted to be of service. That's what he's here for.' He turned to the postmaster, who had risen from his chair. 'Had a good meal, Jeff?' he asked. 'That's good. By the way, did you give Miss Dean that flash that came through from Perth Office this afternoon?' 'No I didn't, Alec. It was included in the radio message directed to you. It came over the blower and it hasn't been typed off officially. You were passing so I gave you the total radio message as it read.' A faint smile eased itself round Alec Jardene's mouth. 'Always a stickler for Civil Service regulations, Jeff? Well, so be it!' He turned to Jodi and this time, she thought, his eyes were curious. 'A radiogram came through from my Perth agent this afternoon, Miss Dean. You know Simon Mansion, of course. He was responsible for sending you here. He included a message for you. I'll pass it on when I see you later.' 'Thank you.' For some mad reason Jodi had actually felt nervous. She was afraid her voice might have given her away. Then I'll see you over in my office shortly? Excuse me now.' He walked away, down the long canteen-room, leaving behind him echoes of his spare way of speaking. Jodi, nonplussed, remained staring at the tall straight back which yet seemed to move with such ease. Her eyes came round to meet those of Jeff Casson the postmaster. 'Not to worry, Miss Jodi,' he said, shaking his head. 'Alec's an exacting man. Resolute if opposed. But by and large he's a wise man.'

'Yes . . . I'm sure,' Jodi agreed politely. 'Otherwise you wouldn't have made him officer-in-charge, would you?' The problem was to get him to take it on. He's busy enough with his own property affairs generally.' 'Yes, of course—' Jodi was thoughtful. She did not finish what was in her mind. 'What was that all about?' Carina asked across the table. 'Have you and "my man" crossed swords already, Jodi?' The postmaster leaned forward. 'I wouldn't call him "my man" even as a joke, Miss Carina. If he heard of it there'd be a back-lash that would scurry a herd of bullocks from here to Capricorn. Just call him "Alec", the same as we all do. You're his secretary, aren't you? Well, maybe wait a bit, you wouldn't know him that well yet, would you? Everyone from the dustman to the State Premier calls him Alec.' 'Thank you for the advice,' Carina pretended a pout. 'Of course, as a stranger here ... I need advice.' 'You'll get it. There's plenty of it around. Half the trouble Alec has in setting the place on its feet again is the quantity of free advice that's thrust at him.' 'I suppose he really does have a tough job,' Jodi said to ease the moment. 'As tough as they come. I'm telling you that for sure.' *** The Office was a timber and asbestos affair. A prefabricated job. It was the kind of building that could be transported on a low-loader to any distant area. As different from the chaos littering the mud-flats, the management in the Office looked efficient and orderly. There were two tables, three chairs, filing cabinets and a boxed indexing system on one of the tables. On other side tables there were typewriters, a dictaphone, a tape recorder and the transceiver set. 'Very modern, very orderly,' Jodi thought with admiration. Matt, having proudly acted as escort, had ushered her inside as if this was his office, and she was his visitor. 'Thank you, Matt,' Jodi said, matching her manner with his. 'It was kind of you to come all the way. I'm grateful. But where is Mr Jardene?' 'He'll be around,' Matt assured her. 'He always is... when he says.' At that moment Alec came in through a rear door. 'Thanks, Matt,' he said, nodding to the boy. 'I'm glad of your help.'

'Sirr!' Matt came to attention and gave a perfect Scout's salute. He aboutturned to the count of three and marched off through the front door with several invisible pokers down his back. Jodi laughed as she watched him go. She almost forgot she was in the Presence. Then she realized Alec was looking at her. Her smile wavered, then faded out. 'Sit down, Miss Dean,' Alec said. The edge of authority was in his voice again. He stood behind his desk and began leafing through papers. 'About this chicken-pox scare,' he said. 'It's all round the town—' He glanced up suddenly. Jodi's eyes dropped to his hands holding the papers. They were long, brown, strong hands. The kind one wouldn't forget. 'That was to be expected,' she said, determined to appear natural. I think Tarrara would be like a village anywhere, surely. If one family is put in isolation everyone knows about it within hours.' She lifted her eyes and met his frankly. 'So? You know about small town life? You are suggesting that small town life is much the same everywhere? Probably it is: but Tarrara is a non-town. It's a place of canvas tents, army huts, transported wooden dwellings. Law and order has to be very much a self-discipline affair where individuals are concerned.' He put his papers down and reached across the table for the cigarette box and pushed it towards her. 'No thank you,' Jodi said, shaking her head. He lit the cigarette and put the burned-out match in the ash tray. Through the spiralling smoke he regarded her with thoughtful eyes. 'From the depths of your experience,' he asked quietly, 'how would you propose to deal with a rumour that does not yet lead to a fact? We are not sure that Jacky Boy Paterson has chicken-pox, are we? We have only an "informed guess". Mary Roberts, who has been on duty during the major part of the day, tells me that only one or two spots have appeared. Except for a slight cold Jacky Boy is better. His temperature at midday was normal.' There was quite a pause as her eyes met his. 'The only thing I have to say is that I'm delighted Jacky Boy appears to have a very mild sickness.' 'Sickness of what?' 'His sickness is still chicken-pox, in my opinion. No matter how mild.' 'But you don't say so categorically?' Jodi drew in a breath.

'Mr Jardene,' she said at last, 'I do not know whether or not in this country a trained nurse may give a straight-out diagnosis and recommend action to be taken by the community. I do not know the Health Laws.' 'I had mentioned to Simon Mansion that we needed a nurse who was accustomed to the ways and practices of this country,' he said, still watching her face. Jodi went on looking at him steadily. There was a very sombre expression in her eyes. What she was thinking about was a wounded feeling, almost as if he had struck her. She would never forgive him for so callously rubbing in that 'stranger from distant parts' description for her person. If she hadn't known her job, then all right. But she knew she was efficient. She knew she had good will and concern for patients and a wish to keep within the rules of medical practice. Why didn't he give her time! What was this anyway? A trial? And all over a case of chicken-pox. He was being judge and prosecution—all in one.

CHAPTER SIX The expression in Jodi's eyes was so candid, the stiffness went out of Alec. He sat down on his chair and crossed one knee over the other. He looked towards the window as if studying the darkling sky. 'Perhaps you, Jodi, could give me some advice,' he said, his manner changed. 'In your experience how would you handle a pox outbreak—if that is what it is—in an outback town? This town, already—in a state of flood— stricken to ground level. You see, I too have a problem. The morale of these people. Chicken-pox is to you a minor complaint. A nothing. To me quarantining whole families in makeshift quarters is a major something. These people are already suffering intolerable hardships with courage. Even a minor outbreak could be the proverbial straw on the camel's back.' He stopped. There was quite a silence. Then he went on, his voice like his eyes, tired again. 'If we don't quarantine, we may have many families struggling with sick children. Not a catastrophe, but I don't want to make the town face this issue, unless it is certain that Jacky Boy has this wretched pox. Some patients are one step this side of breaking point already. Mrs Paterson, Jacky Boy's mother, for instance.' Jodi spent a long moment in silence. 'I think,' she said at length, 'it is necessary to get a doctor, if you can get the doctor. I understand now that this is an emergency. The people matter as much as the children. A doctor will reassure the parents. That will help them to have just that jot extra patience.'

He watched her face as she spoke. 'Very well, I'll send out an emergency call. Meantime now is the moment of uncertainty. Tonight.' 'Then tonight, in the absence of a doctor, you'll have to listen to the resident nurse, won't you? Later, you will have to tell the people what to do. If the doctor were here they would listen to him and obey his instructions. They'll obey your instructions because you have the authority. On the other hand we could wait twenty-four hours until we see if any other children develop symptoms. Jacky Boy's infectious stage would have been several days before he was brought in. There doesn't have to be a panic epidemic, Mr Jardene. Modern inoculations attend to that.' Alec was listening, more with interest than in anger now. His expression said so. 'That makes sense,' he said at last. 'Now for the sixty-four-thousand dollar question. Is it your firm unwavering opinion—not a guess, mark you—that those two spots on Jacky Boy are chicken-pox?' 'The spots together with the symptoms of slight fever and a cold? Yes.' 'Very well, we'll act. Willy nilly, the Paterson mother and child will be kept in home-quarantine—for the time being. We'll arrange that tonight. Tomorrow morning at eight o'clock you will have to go without your off-duty sleep, I'm sorry about that. I want you to sit on a chair by a table under the trees outside the Medical Unit and examine the chest, back and arms of every child in the town.' He pushed a jotting pad and pencil across the table to her. 'Note down there what you'll need.' 'Cotton wool, antiseptic, a thermometer, a pile of destructible spatulas, two separate bowls of water, several towels ..." She was ticking the items off on her fingers. He looked at her with interest again. 'That came off the assembly-line very smartly,' he said. 'In a fully equipped hospital I'd ask for a lot more,' she said quietly. 'Things of a hard-spelling nature.' He very nearly smiled. Jodi caught its fugitive promise in the quick light in his eyes and in the easing of the muscles around his mouth. Suddenly she smiled herself. It was a natural, fun-loving kind of smile. Her face was quite lovely. 'I think we'll both manage,' she said. 'Thumbs up!' 'Both?' His eyebrows went up fractionally. 'Meaning that you and I give each other a trial?' 'Yes.'

'We might surprise each other even more,' he said, and the elusive smile came back again. 'I'll go straight up to the Unit now,' Jodi said, standing up. 'I'm due for duty. In any case I'd like to see how Jacky Boy is getting on for myself. I left a change of uniform at the Unit when I finished duty early this morning.' 'Good. Meantime—' There was a knock at the door. A tired, exasperated look came over Alec's face again. 'Come in,' he said. Mrs Mathews came into the room. 'I'm sorry to intrude, Alec,' she said, 'but we've just had a quick spot meeting of the Women's Auxiliary. We are all anxious about this chicken-pox scare. Some of the women flatly refuse to keep their children away from school if that becomes the order of the day. School keeps the older ones out of mischief, and away from the demolition. Those in tents couldn't possibly keep their children in—' She broke off. Alec's manner had become remote again. 'That will be all for tonight,' he said to Jodi. Thank you for coming. Please sit down, Mrs Mathews.' 'Goodnight, Mr Jardene,' Jodi said, carefully professional. She smiled at the newcomer. 'Goodnight, Mrs Mathews. Thank you so much for taking care of Carina and myself at dinner this evening. It was very good of you.' Mrs Mathews, a very kindly person, smiled readily. 'My dear child,' she said. 'It was such a pleasure—and such a relief too—just to have you, a nurse, with us. Isn't that so, Alec? And such a nice one into the bargain! That's a real gift from the gods.' Jodi stole a glance at Alec but his face was dead-pan. 'Goodnight, Mr Jardene,' she repeated, then vanished through the door. Not until she was outside did she remember Alec had not given her Simon's radio message. He'd been too concerned about Tarrara, and panic stations over a very mild disease. The night was washed with light. The moon was rising, a glorious, super, giant-sized apricot. The bush was still. Each tree, each blade of grass, cast its own moveless shadow on the pale light that washed the ground. Someone with a light tread was coming from a car parked by the grass near the track. It was a girl. 'Good evening!' she said pleasantly as she came up to Jodi. Her voice was

delightful. It was as clear as the flick of a nail on a crystal bowl. 'Good evening!' Jodi replied, uncertainly. The newcomer was Alec's dinner guest. There in the frail light, the subtly curved lines of the girl's blue dress look on some of the night's shine. Her pale face was a very pretty face, Jodi thought. There was something a little unreal about her. Or was it merely moonshine on a very good subject? 'You're Jodi, the resident nurse, aren't you?' the girl asked. 'Your friend Carina told me about you. I was talking to her half an hour ago.' 'You must be Miss Stacy?' Jodi was trying to sound as friendly and welcoming as possible—just to match up. For the life of her she couldn't think why she had to try. The girl was being so very pleasant. 'My name is Annabelle,' the clear voice corrected. 'Everyone, but everyone, right down to the smallest child in Tarrara, calls me Annabelle.' 'Thank you, I'd like to call you Annabelle. It's a lovely name, isn't it?' 'Mine is the only one nowadays. That's certain. Annabelle as a name went out of fashion years ago. In now-time I'm at least original. People don't forget me.' 'Oh, I'm sure they wouldn't do that, in any case . . .' Nobody would forget anyone so pretty, and so friendly in a gracious sort of way, Jodi thought. 'You've just been having your command audition with Alec, haven't you?' Annabelle asked, lightly. 'Poor dear, he works too hard! I've been scheming to get him to take a flight to the city just for relaxation. Have some fun, you know. Generally he has to go on Tarrara's business. He has to see State Government officials—all the Mighty who think they have to have their own fingers in poor tumbledown Tarrara's pie.' 'I expect they're giving help,' Jodi suggested tactfully. 'Help? Yes, of course! But they have Meckering— the earthquake town—on their hands too. An earthquake is so rare, and so much more romantic than floods. Don't you think? I mean floods are so wet!' 'But miserable, and terribly frightening?' 'Ghastly! still it's good to get Alec away from it all some of the time. A round of golf out at our farm, or a good gallop round his own paddocks does him the world of good.' 'I'm sure it does.' 'You must get someone to show you and Carina the farmlands around sometime. We call our property Outland. That's what it was in the early pioneering days. Way out in the wilds. Of course you'll be bound to go to the annual picnic races at Mandura—that's Alec's place. We have the most gorgeous time there. Everyone comes—from miles and miles around.' 'It sounds marvellous.' 'It will be marvellous, I can tell you. Oh! I've just remembered something. Alec is very very annoyed with Simon. Simon Mansion, I mean. It's all a joke really, but Alec is not, in his present mood, prepared to be amused. Didn't Alec give you the message Simon sent to you?'

'No. I think he must have forgotten. We were discussing Medical Unit affairs.' 'I'll give you the message now if you like. I was doing my one-day-a-week voluntary stint in the Post Office—if you can call a caravan a Post Office—and I heard it come over the air.' 'Yes, please, do tell me.' 'There was some Mandura property business first for Alec. When that was finished Simon added—"How is my girl friend getting on? Give her my love. Spare some over for Carina".' Annabelle finished with a tinkle of her clear belllike laugh. 'Quite an admirer, I'd say, Jodi!' 'But—' Jodi began, surprised at the message. Uneasy too! 'It was the last bit about Carina that made the first bit about "my girl friend" mean you,' Annabelle interrupted gaily. 'Not to mind, Jodi. That's Simon all over. A sort of Knave of Hearts—' 'Oh dear!' Annabelle laughed again. She touched Jodi on the arm lightly. 'My dear—don't worry about that, for goodness' sake. I'm not really breaking a confidence. Everyone has a transceiver set and everyone listens in to the gossip of the day. Alec would only be mad because Simon attached a love message to an official business one. That's all. Simon did it on purpose, of course. He loves to get under Alec's skin just for the heck of it. You don't mind my telling you?' 'No, of course not. I'm glad to have the message. It's very nice, even if Simon sent it for fun.' 'Well—come to think of it, I'm not so sure, Jodi. Simon probably meant it. It's time he shook off those gay-blade bachelor habits of his, anyway. Now if you don't mind, I must dash in and prod Alec. He does have to say goodnight to me before I drive home. I'll tell Alec I gave you the message. Goodnight Jodi, I'm so glad we caught up with each other.' 'Me too. Goodnight, Annabelle.' Jodi walked up the track. She could hear Annabelle's feet lightly tap-tapping up the wooden steps into Alec's office. She heard the screen fly-door open, then shut. There had been no preliminary knock. Jodi found herself wondering in a puzzled irrelevant way what Mrs Mathews in conference with Alec would do now? Rise hurriedly from her chair, smile cheerfully, say goodnight, then tactfully be gone? Jodi took her time as she made her way towards the Medical Unit. She went for a while—just to collect her presence of mind. It was such a heavenly night. The moonlight shone down on the silent watchful bushland as if to light her way. She would never be lost with a moon like that about. Lost?

Supposing her brother had ever lost himself in the bush. So many people had died that way, she had been told. They had gone out on gold rushes from the Gold-fields and never been heard of again! She must not think this way. It was better to think of something bright. For instance, that lovely message from Simon. It had warmed her heart. It didn't matter that Alec had been angry. And that Annabelle had laughed! Jodi reached the Medical Unit half an hour later. She mounted the two steps and went through the screen door into the light. 'Hurray! She's here at last!' Carina cried, jumping up from the one and only armchair. 'Did my man dare to keep you all this time? Was he pulling you to pieces, Jodi darling? Ron, put on the kettle quick. We're famished for coffee.' Ron had risen leisurely from his chair. 'Howdy, Jodi?' he said with a grin. 'So shortly here and so soon to be called out by the Tribal Chief for a wongi.' 'What does "wongi" mean?' Jodi asked, taking her uniform down from a peg behind the curtain. 'A wongi, dear Jodi,' Ron said, 'is a talk-in. Top secret stuff for the Aborigines. Also for sundry town people in high places. Hey, Jodi! What are you doing?' 'Unbuttoning my dress. When that's done I shall step out of it. Then I shall step into my uniform. You could always turn your back, Ron. There doesn't appear to be a dressing-room. As for people in high places? My only worry is to see if Jacky Boy is being so quiet because he is asleep, or because he is ill. What happened to the sprained ankle case?' 'She went home after Mary Roberts had bathed it and rebound it again,' volunteered Ron. 'At least, so Miss Annabelle Stacy said. Annabelle had been up here having a wongi with Mary Roberts and Carina. Plan-making, they called it Visits to farms. Race meetings and goodness knows what else—' 'Oh!' Jodi said, actually disappointed not to have had her nursing skills in demand. 'Funny, but I thought there'd be hordes of people rushing up here to be nursed by me. Now even Jacky Boy has gone to sleep. Ron, am I a very boring person, do you think? Have I put the town out of illness from sheer lack of interest?' Ron was attending to the kettle now on the boil, so did not answer for the moment. Over his shoulder Jodi could see a figure coming into the path of light streaming out through the door. In an odd kind of way something inside her went on guard. At that moment Ron defected from the kettle and put his arm around her. 'Listen, sweetie—' he began. Alec Jardene came through the path of light, up the steps, and in through the

wire-screen door. For a second there was silence. He stood and surveyed the group in front of him. 'Nobody seems very busy tonight,' he said with a touch of irony in his voice. 'Miss Dean—when you have freed yourself from Ron Stevens's embrace I would like to speak to you again. It's a matter of importance.' Ron dropped his arm and turned back to making instant coffee. 'Yes, certainly, Mr Jardene,' Jodi said, trying to appear as the resident nurse, and not as Ron Stevens's playmate. In a vague kind of way she was also wondering if Annabelle had missed her goodnight session with Alec. Or maybe it was just a quickie because Alec had this 'important' business he wanted to talk about now. 'Matt, who is tonight's runner,' Alec said, 'has come up with a message from the camps on the other side of the river. The five-year-old child who lives next to the Paterson family has developed spots on his chest. Mary tells me they are blister-like in character, the same as Jacky Boy's spots. I'm afraid we do have a chicken-pox outbreak amongst the children.' 'Oh dear . . .' Jodi began. 'I think you had better come with me and see the child yourself. Mary thought so, anyway.' He looked from Jodi to the other two. 'Ron, would you and Carina stay on watch here with Jacky Boy till I return?' 'Yes, of course!' Carina said, delighted he had called her by her Christian name. Then she added demurely, 'I'm only too glad to do anything at all that would please you.' 'I'm glad I'm able to please somebody,' Alec said in a very laconic way. Carina in return gave of her very best and most enchanting smile. Alec's car was like himself. Impressive and expensive: long line and high powered. Inside, it was kept in perfect shining condition. Jodi reflected that probably everything about the man was methodical and efficient. Tough too. Hard to live up to, she thought a little woefully. 'Those bars across the front of your car?' she asked. 'Are they kangaroo bars? They look very businesslike.' 'That's exactly what they are,' Alec said, as he started up the engine. The seats were deep cushioned with a sort of whispering comfort about them. Alec drove steadily along the track, under the trees and round low bushes towards the tumbled-down old Tarrara. There was quite a silence. Jodi didn't know what next to say, so she left the next move to Alec. 'The kangaroos aren't as numerous out here as they are further north,' he said at length. 'There are enough of them, though. If a big

one decides to cross the track at the wrong moment he can turn a car over. It's an occupational hazard for people who travel through the bush or across the outback. That's why I'm driving cautiously at the moment.' 'They seem such nice creatures—the kangaroos. I mean —' Jodi began. 'They are, if they'd only mind their own business and keep to their original direction when moving about at night. Unfortunately lights fascinate them and they come at a car at great speed. Sheer curiosity, no more. You don't see them until it's too late.' 'So the kangaroo bars are a sort-of "me-or-you" precaution?' 'Exactly. Do you drive a car, Jodi?' Jodi had a relieved feeling that he had consciously dropped the 'Miss'. Sitting beside her in the car, almost touching her as he tested the hand-brake, he didn't seem so aloof. Maybe he wasn't quite so reserved, even withdrawn, as she had thought first. She had a feeling now that he was more the kind of man who walked and worked by himself —when he needed to do that! 'You do drive a car, Jodi?' he asked again, quite gently, as if he had to wake her up. 'Yes, I do,' she said quickly. 'I'm sorry. I was thinking.' 'Of what?' 'Mr Jardene—please, may I tell you something?' 'Fire away. But don't call me "Mr Jardene". No one does.' 'Thank you. It's not terribly easy to say someone's given-name the first time, is it?' 'But it's all right at later times?' Jodi laughed. 'I'll get the first one over quickly, Alec. There, I've said it.' 'Good. Now you can forget it. It will come automatically. Did you notice I had stopped calling you Miss Dean?' 'Yes. I was glad.' He glanced at her but she was carefully keeping her face turned straight ahead. Whatever name he went by —he was the Boss. She could hardly forget that. Yet— actually he was being almost friendly. In a funny way she wanted to reach out for that friendliness as if she needed It. Which was odd. She didn't need it. Or did she? 'Thank you for being glad,' he said unexpectedly. 'It's not easy for an English person to drop into Christian names, is it?' 'Oh look!' Jodi said suddenly, sitting forward and staring through the windscreen at the desolate ghost-town that lay before them. Alec had swung the car round a curve and come out on the moonlit site of the old floodlittered town. 'Oh isn't it sad!' she said. 'So forlorn. Sort-of unloved. Moonlight makes it sadder than by daylight—' 'It appalled the people after

the floods came. They've become accustomed to their skeleton now.' 'How did it happen?' 'A tidal wave at sea came in the train of the earthquake. It built up in the river mouth first, then later further up at the creek. When the worst was over our first job was to see the people had food, warmth and shelter.' 'Yes, of course. Basic needs.' The toughest part of all is to start the re-building.' Alec's voice suddenly sounded quieter. The hard stern quality had gone out of it. 'The new town will be further up the slopes of the creek, in safe country of course. If it happened once in a lifetime it could happen again, one supposes.' 'It's fantastic that you're doing all the planning and rebuilding yourselves,' Jodi said with feeling. By the light from the dashboard she could see something wry about the halfsmile he wore. 'Not quite all,' he said. 'We're not magicians. The three governments—State and Commonwealth and Shire—are helping. We're getting assistance from several "good cause" organizations like the Lions and the Red Cross. We can't take all the credit if Tarrara rises up from the mud-flats again. The Red Cross provided immediate relief, and they provided your Medical Unit.' 'That's wonderful,' Jodi said slowly. 'But the actual organization? The people of Tarrara are doing a great self-help job about that, aren't they?' 'We're like Meckering, the earthquake town. We want the new town to be our way. The town we want. For that we need to make all the crucial decisions ourselves. We know the way of life here, because we live here—' He paused, then slowed the car down to a stop.

They had crossed a narrow peninsula of hard dry land intruding through the mud-flats to the point where the creek lost itself around a bend. It was not a wide creek now. It was shadowed from the bright night sky by groups of twisted pale-trunked witchen trees. Their curling branches reached up as if they once had writhed in some primeval dance. They stood in strange, fixed statue effects. 'What are they called?' Jodi asked in awe. 'The trees, I mean.' 'Paperbarks. A type of gum-tree. Can you see how the bark skins down the trunks in strips like paper curling away?' 'Yes, the moonlight helps. They're weird and wonderful, aren't they? Look, there's one further along with the moon behind it. It's like a silhouette out of Grimm's Fairy Tales.' Jodi was excited, and awed too. Yet somehow touched. It was all in her voice, and in her young ardent body as she pressed forward

to peer through the windscreen. Alec did not speak. He leaned back in the corner of his seat and watched Jodi's face as she gazed through the windscreen. The soft night light touched her cheek, touched her throat, and silvered one arm. All of her seemed to shine with the same tender sheen that touched the paper-barks to weird magic. 'This is where we get out and walk,' Alec said suddenly. There was something unexpectedly brusque about his voice that startled Jodi. 'No place for loitering this,' he said. 'Not on dark nights. Nor on moonlit ones!—for that matter.' Funny, Jodi thought, I feel that too!

CHAPTER SEVEN Alec opened the drive door and swung himself out. 'Just a moment, Jodi,' he said. 'I'll come and help you. Free walking is difficult here. We have to cross some of the wrack left behind by the floodwaters. It's easy to trip and fall.' Jodi waited till he came round the car to her side. He opened the door and took her hand. 'Please be guided by me,' he said. 'Pick every footstep carefully. In daylight you'd see well enough, but even then I doubt if you'd recognize where the dried mud is only paper thin.' He held her hand firmly. 'Thank you.' She was trying to be formal, yet was only too aware of the strength and warmth of his hand. 'I'll take care . . .' she added. 'I'll see that you do. I'm sorry to appear to doubt your abilities but I can't afford a casualty—' 'No nurse to nurse the nurse?' she asked lightly. There's a half-buried tree branch on your left. Watch It.' He spoke as if he had not heard her remarks. She tried to make amends. 'I'm grateful for your help,' she said quietly. There was a long pause, then he added, 'You now understand one of the reasons why I counselled Simon Mansion to find me someone accustomed to the country. He told you of my doubts?' 'Yes he did. Very much so. But I wanted to come, and I thought I could learn, and learn quickly.' 'We are nearing the bridge now. There's a bad spot we're coming to here. Pick

your way carefully, but hold firmly on my hand in case you slip.' 'Thank you.' 'People who know the country well know that these miniature claypans, left by heavy rains or flooding creeks, are deceptive. There may be nothing solid under the surface.' 'I understand,' Jodi said. 'Lesson number one. I won't forget it' She wished very much that she didn't have to hold tight to his hand on one or two spots. She hated being dependent on him. And yet . . . 'Here's the Bailey bridge. All's perfectly clear from now on.' He dropped her hand automatically. It gave Jodi a funny bereft feeling. 'As far as moving about the bush is concerned,' Alec added, 'you won't be a handicap as long as you watch your feet. And never lose sight of landmarks. When you move from one point to another you must keep a landmark in view. Will you tell Carina about this, Jodi? Being lost in the bush is the greatest hazard we have with people from overseas. Sometimes with children too—' 'Yes, of course,' Jodi said, following him across the bridge. 'I will warn Carina, and I'll be most careful myself.' She now felt she was being lectured, while knowing he was giving her necessary advice. Yet it made her feel rebellious. Which was another ridiculous thing. He had spoken so impersonally. Almost coldly.

'What are you thinking, Jodi?' he asked unexpectedly. 'I was thinking about the bush. It's beautiful—in spite of being so weird. Perhaps because it is so weird. Sort-of silent, and phantom-like. And old. Terribly, terribly old . . .' 'You feel that, Jodi? Do you?' He was suddenly changed. He sounded surprised, and interested. There was warmth in his voice. 'Yes. I don't know how to explain it . . ' 'Better and wiser people than you and I have tried to explain it,' he said. "They can't. It's something one feels about it . . .' 'Yes, it's a feeling. There aren't enough descriptive words in our language, are there?' 'Our language?' he asked. Then he laughed. It was a wonderful sound. Quiet and warm and friendly. 'Well . . . we do . . . share . . .'

'Share something? We share the same language. I feel we also share the same feeling about the bush. Right? If you have respect for the bush, Jodi, you won't be in any danger in it. I'm sorry I was so emphatic about my warnings.' 'They were necessary, specially the bit about the landmark. Thank you for your advice.' 'Good. And you will warn Carina for me. I'm finding her extremely valuable already. She's very fast and efficient on their typewriter.' They had come to the end of the Bailey bridge and now took a short cleared track round a turn of the creek's bank. There, in front of them, was the left bank of en-camped Tarrara. 'But doesn't it look almost gay!' Jodi said. 'With the lights—I mean.' Graduating up the slope of the low hill was a twinkling fire-dance of tiny lights. The canvas homes, the caravans, the transportable timber frames— each had its light. Some moving: some still. It was like a dance of the glowworms. 'It could be a dream world,' Jodi added. 'So pretty, yet so sad. I want to pinch myself to make sure it is real.' 'It's real enough, I'm afraid. You'll see for yourself when we get up there.' Jodi wished she had not spoken. His words seemed to point up that sad, even tragic things could never be gay. An absurd word to use in this case... They walked on, Jodi following where Alec led. Just before they entered the camp area Alec stopped. 'I think we'd better run over our drill before we set to work,' he said. 'Yes. Please tell me exactly what you want me to do.' 'If you are sure this second child has chicken-pox you must say so firmly. I've reached that conclusion. It's a mild disease, but morale is what matters now. Any hesitation on your part, then the parents will have doubts. They're not likely to be co-operative about being cut off from others on the north side of the creek—unless they believe it to be absolutely necessary.' 'It's such a mild disease!' Jodi said. 'But I do understand it is a predicament for the town. I hope the doctor gets here soon. One word from him and they'll all be like lambs.' 'We've sent out an emergency call. Unfortunately, if he's still flat out busy he could regard chicken-pox as something ridiculous. No life-and-death matter.' Jodi could not help laughing. 'In ten years' time it will really seem ridiculous, won't it?' she said. 'A whole town held in thrall—and all because of the least of all children's diseases. Some have it, and never even know they have it.'

'It is not funny to me at the moment, I'm afraid,' Alec said in his 'no-trifling' accent again. 'Frayed nerves are already beginning to appear, so the morale needs a booster, not a depressive.' 'Yes, I understand.' 'I'm sorry if I have been too blunt,' Alec said more kindly. 'But I understand these people. You—' 'I'm a stranger. I have the message. I know what you mean.' 'You said that—' Alec said thoughtfully, the drawl very apparent now, 'as if... you have been . . . hurt?' 'Not at all. Simon well and truly warned us about that problem.' 'I understand quite well why Simon wanted to send you here, Jodi. Would you tell me something more? Why did you want to come? Here, and not to a city hospital?' 'I can't answer for Carina. I came for the same reason that I came to Australia at all,' Jodi said reluctantly. 'I wanted to find someone I once loved, and who went away. He came somewhere here in the West. Somewhere near the Goldfields. Tarrara seemed to be not so very far away, though some distance to the north-west of the Goldfields. Distances don't seem so great when you're looking at the map.' 'Quite deceptive,' he said—in his most laconic way. They walked on in silence. Jodi looked at the twinkling lights spattering the hillside and changed her mind about thinking them beautiful after all. One thing was certain—she could hardly tell Alec her whole story. It would sound too scatty. In spite of that she still had had to come. Just to know she had tried! If she failed—then she would accept that as final. She would have tried! 'This person is someone you apparently hold dear?' Alec asked at length. 'Someone whom you miss? Am I right?' 'Quite right. Yes.' She couldn't say this lost one had been a child she barely remembered. 'Perhaps I was wrong,' she said reluctantly. Alec caught the nuance in her voice and glanced at her quickly. 'Plain foolish, I suppose. He wouldn't dream I would ever come here. He might not even be pleased, if he did know. How does one be sure—well, of anything?' For a few moments she forgot she was talking to Alec Jardene. She was thinking aloud. 'I'm sorry if this is an unhappy topic for you, Jodi,' Alec said after a silence. 'It is necessary for me to know your motives, in order to judge how long you will be likely to stay in this post. It is my obligation to the town.' 'I'll stay as long as Tarrara needs me, Alec' 'Thank you. That is all I wanted to know. The new town will be built within a

year or eighteen months. Meantime there is always hope that you will find your friend. Enquiries can be set up. It's relatively easy to trace anyone who has entered this country. Records of all ships' passengers—nowadays airplane passengers too—who have ever entered the country are kept in the records. That's been the case since the days of the first settlement.' 'Simon told me that. It gives me hope.' 'Oh. Simon did, did he? Then he explained to you that this is a vast State, but there are very few people in it. Some of these people are congregated round the Gold-fields. It is always easy in such circumstances to trace a person. There are records in the big mining companies. In the small prospecting shows there are records of all licences and leases, in the Mines Department. If he came to the Goldfields there would have been some connection with mining. There always is.' 'You mean there are so few people in the Goldfields, relatively, that someone will hear of or pass on the enquiry?' 'Exactly. Goldfields people, past and present, are like a clan. They never forget. In the meantime we need to get on with the job here. Will you put this matter out of your mind for the time being?' 'Of course I will,' Jodi said gladly. She was so relieved, she touched his arm. The touch was lighter than a night moth brushing petals, but he seemed to start. 'Thank you for being optimistic, Alec. I know Simon will do everything possible. He's a pet, isn't he? I suddenly feel wonderfully happy.' 'I must take your arm again here,' he said firmly. 'This is loose gravel and can be slippery.' Jodi was seeing rainbows in her sky. He had given her so much hope. She loved the feel of his strong hand under her elbow. Optimism coming from him was so unexpected it seemed more valuable. He could give Simon some clues, perhaps . . . If only Carina could see us now! Arm in arm! she thought. Would she be mad with envy! Oh well, Carina, being Carina, will work something even more dramatic for herself—in the fullness of time. Jodi laughed again. Again she sensed that Alec turned his head and looked at her. 'It's such a lovely night,' she said, by way of excuse. 'I agree.' Alec sounded puzzled. She was sure he did not smile, but she did not mind. Not one bit. His hand was under her arm, so nothing else mattered. They were getting on fine—for a couple of strangers! One from one country and one from the other! If she was sure he would laugh she would say that aloud. Alas, she wasn't

sure, so she didn't speak. He broke the silence only once and that was a few minutes before they reached the Patersons' camp-house. 'If you need to know anything about the people here, Jodi,' he said, 'I think Annabelle Stacy could advise you. Her family, like my family, have lived in the district since the turn of the century. She knows, or knows of, everyone.' 'Thank you. I met Miss Stacy tonight. I was very impressed. She is very attractive. Kind too—I think—' 'You think so? I'm glad of that. I've always felt—' He broke off. 'Well, more of that another day. This is the Patersons' place here.' 'I can hear a baby crying.' Jodi's voice was suddenly filled with compunction. 'In that case you'll be able to demonstrate your capacities straight away. That might appease the baby's mother. She won't be able to take kindly to quarantine—either for herself or for her children. She's not a strong woman. Never very well.' He hesitated, then added gently, 'I'd be glad if you would be extra gentle with her.' 'Yes, of course.' 'You might also put her mind at rest about Jacky Boy being happy, and not seriously ill.' 'That one's easy. Jacky Boy is actually in splendid health—except for the germs he might carry around wherever he goes. Even the infectious stage should be over with him.' They stopped at the flap door of the little canvas house. The bright light threw a lesser light on their faces. Alec had stopped in his tracks. 'I'm sorry, Jodi—but I have to tell you this. Anyone from over the sea is a complete foreigner to Mrs Paterson. She and her husband actually lived for years in a tumbledown shack at the poor end of the town. They haven't had much education. She may not quite understand your accent.' 'My accent!' Jodi laughed. 'I thought it was everybody here who had an accent.' For once he seemed genuinely amused. 'One on the scoreboard to you,' he said. 'Please don't worry,' Jodi said quickly. 'At home we often had patients who had never before come into town from some distant village. They're not so much suspicious as afraid of strangers. It could be the same with Mrs Paterson. I'll put her mind at rest—promptly' He was looking at her thoughtfully. In the pale yellow light she could see the firm lines of his brow and chin. The strong line of his mouth. The questioning

look in his eyes unexpectedly troubled her—not for herself but for him. He had a lonely, strong-man role to play in this disaster town. Nothing of it was for himself. She returned his look with confidence. And with a smile. 'Let's go inside,' she said, lifting her chin. She felt his hand tighten on her arm before he dropped it. 'I really must do something about that baby,' she added.

The make-do house was in impeccable order. Jodi barely noticed details because she was immediately struck by someone very young who was warming a baby's bottle at a portable gas stove. 'Good evening, Mrs Paterson,' Alec said to her. 'I've brought Miss Jodi Dean to tell you how Jacky Boy is getting along. Miss Dean is the new nurse in charge of the Medical Unit.' Jodi's eyes widened as she looked at this girl. For that was all she was. This was Mrs Paterson! She was brown all over, except where her blouse had lost its top button and her white skin peeped through. She was incredibly thin. Yet, because of her young look, and her quick movements, was in fair health. Her feet, bare like her arms, were sunburnt to a uniform brown by her short lifetime of hard work in the blazing sun of Tarrara's summer. Not a thing in the camp was out of place. Not a crumb, not a stray shoe, not an out-of-place dish, nor an unfolded nappy was to be seen. It was the tidiest place—bar an operating theatre—that Jodi had ever seen. Her children and home first—Jodi thought. Herself probably never at all! She offered a tentative smile, but Mrs Paterson only looked back uncompromisingly at this stranger. She was tense: taut as a strained rope. 'Please, may I speak to your baby?' Jodi asked. She did not wait for permission but went straight to the cot. She picked up the baby and cradled him to her; as if he were her own child. 'There! There!' she said, smiling down at the baby in her arms. 'There! That's right! I'm strange and peculiar because I'm not your mother. But I'm a makedo one for a minute—' She gently rocked the baby in her arms, then turned his face so that it was cupped in the warm flesh of her neck. 'What's she saying?' Mrs Paterson, still suspicious asked Alec. She had finished warming the bottle now. Jodi laughed. Alec, she could see, was for once at a loss. This was a woman's realm—this cradling of babies. He was the stranger. Mrs Paterson had never heard any speech but that of the slow, tight-lipped

outback drawl. She thought Jodi was speaking in some near-foreign language. 'I'm speaking English,' Jodi said, smiling. 'Only a bit different. You'll get used to it.' 'She the one that's looking after Jacky Boy?' Mrs Paterson asked Alec. He nodded. 'Yes. That's why Jacky Boy is almost better. He took a couple of days to get over his high temperature, that was all. He's fine.' Mrs Paterson looked at Jodi again. 'Is that right?' she asked. Jodi smiled over the baby's downy head, and nodded. "Yes. But we must keep him a little longer, you know. He still has a poxy cough.' She brushed her cheek against the baby's head, then held the baby a little distance from her, smiling with delight as she did so. 'Look!' she said. 'Look at his mouth! Oh, isn't he gorgeous!' They all looked. A strange little flitting smile was playing round the baby's mouth. It was a smile that only a very young baby could give. It was guileless, innocent, and touched with wonder. Alec looked at the two young women. First at one, then at the other, as they nodded their heads together over the child. He looked puzzled, then interested—in a thinking way. 'Go on!' Jodi said to the baby. 'Go on, little one! Keep smiling. You haven't found out about the world yet, have you?' Alec turned towards the entrance. 'I'll leave you two together for about ten minutes. I want to see Mary Roberts.' He hesitated, looking at them again. He was half amused, half puzzled. 'I didn't know a baby as young as that could smile,' he said. very laconic. 'Oh! But always and quite often!' Jodi replied firmly. Her eyes met his over the baby's head. She was unaware that her own smile was of the heavenly sort too—at that moment. Alec turned, lifted the flap over the door, and went out. Jodi caught Mrs Paterson's eyes and she gave her the tiniest of winks. They smiled at each other. Then laughed. 'We must never tell him it is only wind that makes a tiny baby smile,' Jodi said. 'It would be such a let-down for Tarrara's manager, wouldn't it? All baby wants to do is give a whacking big burp of wind.' Mrs Paterson's smile broadened.

'You know about babies, don't you?' 'Oh yes!' Jodi nodded judiciously. 'Quite a lot, but not as much as you do, of course. You've had two babies yourself. I've only had other people's babies to look after. I'm green with envy.' Mrs Paterson took the child from Jodi's arms and gently massaged his back to move the wind. She looked over the tiny downy head at the stranger for a long considering minute. 'I guess you can keep my Jacky Boy for a bit longer,' she said at length. Jodi breathed out with relief. She'd won! 'Thank you. I'll bring him back to you, well and happy. That's a promise.' 'That's all right. I was kinda goin' to fetch him from that place tomorrow. I've changed my mind now. You're okay. I can see that.' 'Oh, if only Mr Alec Jardene could hear those words of praise!' Jodi said wishfully. 'Why? Don't he like you yet? He will. He'll find out. He always knows in the end. But mind you—he takes his time. He's like that, is Alec. Takes his time.' 'When he has made up his mind, he is always right?' 'Always, as far as I know. You ask my man when he comes back from Mount Tom Price. He's always right too.' Mrs Paterson's description of her husband as 'my man' struck a new thought in Jodi's mind. It was so unconsciously happy, possessed and possessing too. That was how Carina sounded when she spoke of Alec as 'my man'! Possessed and possessing too! In so short a time? Well, it had happened in history before. It could happen again! She'd felt her own pulses race more than once in the last twenty-four hours. Which was ridiculous, of course! A quarter of an hour later Alec returned with Mary Roberts. 'You'd better tell Jodi the story, Mary,' Alec said. He stood brushing two fingers thoughtfully through his hair —just above the right temple—as he looked at Jodi now giving Mrs Paterson's baby his bottle. He was puzzled and rueful and tired—all at the same time. 'You think that youngster has the complaint, Mary?' Jodi asked over the baby's head. 'You'll know as soon as you see him,' Mary said, nodding. 'Spots with

bubbles. Watery eyes. A slight fever, and a croupy cough.' 'Mrs Paterson, here is your pet of a baby back again,' Jodi said. 'Look, he's nearly finished his supper, but I haven't brought up his second lot of wind.' Mrs Paterson's face creased with her shy smile. She all but giggled as she looked from Alec to Jodi as if there was some conspiracy afoot, and it was at Alec's expense too. 'Here, give him to me,' said Mary, bending over Jodi where she sat in a rather rickety armchair. She took the baby and bottle in her arms. 'A few smart rubs on his back will soon move the wind—' 'Let him have his little smile first—' Jodi began' 'Smile!' retorted Mary. 'Why that's only—' 'Ssh! It's a secret,' cautioned Jodi. 'The kind that knows a baby only smiles when he's pleased.' Mary stared at Jodi, and Jodi glanced at Mrs Paterson. Then all three laughed. Alec Jardene looked from one to the other. He shook his head as he turned to the door. Clearly this women's party—and what was going on between the three of them—was a mystery to him. 'If you're ready, Jodi,' he said, 'we'll go and look at this other child. Now.' 'Of course.' Jodi was on her feet and had followed him to the door. As he stood aside to let her pass she turned and glanced at Mrs Paterson and Mary. She put one finger to her lips—enjoining secrecy. All three of them laughed together. Alec shook his head as he followed Jodi through the door. She could almost hear him saying—'Women!' And in the most exasperated tone, too! All over a new baby's smile! she thought. She wished she could explain to Alec that it was one of the little things that made the world go round. But he was back in his silent-and-distant guise again. So she said nothing.

It took Jodi only three minutes with the child next door to confirm Mary Roberts's suspicions. There were the spots with the tell-tale water bubble in the centre. The fever and cold were not bad but were obvious too. She turned from examining the child and nodded to Alec who stood waiting in the doorway between the small bed-room and the living-room. The mother had been watching Jodi's hands at work from the far side of the child's bed. When Jodi nodded to him, Alec's face went grim. He turned and left the room. It was Jodi's turn to shake her head. So much fuss over the slightest of all childish illnesses! she thought. Such a

pity. Yet in her heart she knew that it was not the disease that mattered but its effect on the beleaguered mothers in their makeshift temporary homes. Morale! Perhaps it was something more important than physical health, after all. Well, at this time in Tarrara anyway!

CHAPTER EIGHT Time passed. All of two weeks had flown by at express rate. Jodi and Carina had come to fit into Tarrara almost like gloves. 'I feel as if we've been here for years,' Carina said idly. 'Not years but certainly months,' Jodi agreed. 'I'm part of the place now.' Carina's working hours were from nine to five in Alec Jardene's office. Jodi was on duty at night—sometimes well into the morning—mostly in the Unit. Sometimes she found herself being rushed at top speed across the creek to the encampment on the hill. This happened when one or other of the youthful messengers had come in with a request like 'Nurse to come quick! Jill's got a funny spot on her leg. Is it chicken-pox?' or 'Mary Ann Flinders has fainted. Her mum threw water over her but she won't make sense when she talks. Her mum said to come quick. Does chicken-pox give you the fits?' No, thought Jodi. Mary Ann is putting on a show again: and water thrown over her was the last thing she expected-or really needed. Jodi could see Alec's point about the problem of quarantine and morale. Because the mothers with young children were kept to their camp area on the other side of the creek they felt cut-off, and became over-anxious. The sickness was mild so the children were allowed to stay in their own homes. Only Jacky Boy had remained in the Unit. Nearly all the calls to Mary Roberts —on day duty— or to Jodi later, were to small things that needed attention but were not of any serious nature. Several more children had developed spots, with slight fever and cold. On the whole, though, it looked as if the epidemic was a very mild one indeed. Busy Dr Burns from Cracker Creek had breezed in and confirmed that the epidemic was chicken-pox, and mild. He then breezed out again, with a hand wave to Jodi. 'Keep up the good work, Sister!' was all he had to say. His manner said, I am a very busy man: don't call if you don't have to. You know as well as I do what to do. But of course he couldn't put that into words. Every second evening Alec Jardene came to the Unit. First he looked through the record book made out by Mary on day duty, and Jodi on night duty. The two nurses knew it was essential that Alec, as responsible to the Health Department, had to know what and when even the slightest illness befell the community. He was also responsible to the Medical Services for what medicines were used.

One evening when he came in he looked tired to the point of being worn out. Which surprised Jodi. He mostly seemed on top of any problem. 'Do sit down and have a cup of coffee,' she said. 'I'm due to make some. Ron Stevens will be back any minute with fresh buns. Straight from the baker's oven too.' 'That's one advantage you have for working at night, Jodi.' Alec's smile was sardonic. He sat down in the armchair. 'The baker bakes at night so you get the first and freshest buns from his oven. Is Ron being helpful?' 'Yes. He's marvellous. It was a stroke of genius to make him the official "hospital orderly". We haven't had a patient too heavy for me to lift yet. But who knows?' 'Exactly. A whole town living in makeshift conditions can have unusual problems. Some of those trying to erect something more permanent for the winter can provide a fair wallop of accidents. Have you struck any of the Thorntons yet?' 'No. Should I?' Jodi was putting the kettle on, then taking the cups and saucers from the cupboard. 'They worry me every time I see them whacking up that timber, house of theirs, at top speed too. Bob Thornton sometimes used his head but never before has used his hands, as far as I know. Now he's all hands and no head. He has the whole bunch of kids playing havoc with saws, power drills, hammers, nails and hatchets. I'm waiting for one of them to slice off a foot or fall off the ladder.' 'I think they're wonderful,'- Jodi said cheerfully. 'I've been told a lot about them. I believe the children are busy because they—Dad, Mum, the kids and all—are building their own house, themselves. Quite a prideful business.' 'Even if they all escape unscathed,' Alec said wryly, 'they'll probably have to pull the thing down once we really start on the new town. That'll be all bricks and mortar.' 'Oh no?' Jodi turned round quickly and looked at Alec. 'What a shame. Why? Couldn't they keep it for a hen-house or something?' 'What they don't know, and what I can't tell them just yet—because it's confidential—is that the Shire looks like insisting we build the town higher up on the slopes than first planned. The main street is likely to go right through the middle of Bob Thornton's Country Estate. You don't have two aspirins, do you Jodi?' 'Of course I do, you know that. Don't I have to provide you with a list of all medicines in stock, and all medicines dispensed every twenty-four hours. For the purposes of the Unit—that includes aspirin.' Alec pulled his legs in as if to lift his long length out sf the armchair. 'I'll get them,' he said.

'No. I'm in charge,' Jodi said firmly. 'If you want medication here in the Unit it has to be official. I give you two aspirins with a glass of water. I enter it in the book. You, the patient, sign for it. Later, you the administrator, okay the deal. Quaint, isn't it?' 'I suppose you're right,' he agreed. 'Very quaint. Did you have to be such a stickler for procedure in those hospitals of yours in England?' 'And how!' Jodi handed him the two tablets on a wafer, with a glass of water. 'Am I allowed to take your pulse? and your temperature?' Over the glass he looked at her balefully. 'Certainly not. I have a headache because it's the only convenience I ever suffer from flying that plane of mine. I arrived half an hour ago. No pulse-taking, thank you.' He was indignant at the suggestion. Jodi sat down while he took the aspirin. She was surprised about his headache. She had a picture of Alec Jardene as always on duty, interviewing and being interviewed on every matter on earth to do with the building of a town. Sometimes it was someone from the Shire or Government coming in on matters of official aid. Carina had said, 'Everything mentionable under the sun to do with a town—you name it, he does it.' 'Flying?' Jodi asked. 'Flying where?' 'Flying to the city yesterday, then back, in my Cessna, today. In this case to bring you and Mary Roberts the latest thing in two-way radio so you can contact Dr Burns at Cracker Creek. He has an hour session every morning and an hour every night. He's agreed to take us on the circuit' 'You've been south to the city?' Jodi was incredulous. 'Well, to Jandakot, the small-plane airport. It's a few miles out of Perth. Quite simple you know. Annabelle drove with me out to the farm. Came south with me. Had a hair-do, some beauty treatment, and bought a new dress. She flew back with me today and then drove in here from the farm about an hour ago. Quite tireless is Annabelle.' He looked reflective as he added, 'She was as fresh after that jaunt as a peach. For my pains—I have a headache. You'll have your transceiver set tomorrow morning, Jodi. Thank Annabelle. She chose which kind and which brand. She has faultless taste.' Has she? wondered Jodi, with a touch of rue. Nice to be Annabelle! She has everything! What a pair they made! Thirty miles out to his property by car, several hundred miles to Jandakot after morning tea, then back to Tarrara in time for dinner the next day. And Annabelle looking as appetising as a peach! Poor Carina! How could she compete with that! Alec's eyes were mildly quizzical as he watched the expression flit across Jodi's face. 'I do that trip sometimes twice a week,' he said, very noncommittal. 'Sometimes once in a fortnight. It all depends. Most times I see to it people

come to Tarrara. To me.' He leaned forward to give Jodi the emptied glass. 'I sometimes think . . .' he added with a half-smile, 'that the frequency of my visits depends on how badly Annabelle needs a hair-set. Or finds a cavity in a tooth. With women these things have a certain urgency.' Jodi, her back to Alec, was rinsing the glass under the sink tap. She knew from her first night at the canteen that the ladies on the auxiliary committee regarded Annabelle Stacy as a personage. Hadn't Mrs Mathews been very relieved when Jodi and Carina had given up their places at the top of the table? 'Nice to be Annabelle!' she said lightly, as she now wiped the glass, then put it in its place in the cupboard. Jacky Boy—out of quarantine and ready for discharge— stirred in his cot. Alec turned in his chair and looked towards the child. 'How's Jacky Boy getting on?' he asked. 'Oh, he's marvellous. Quite well actually. He's so busy all day with his chalk, paper and building blocks! Sometimes he makes music by rattling cans. He runs around outside too. He's worn out by night and sleeps like the good and the brave. I'm afraid Mary Roberts, who has him in the daytime, must be worn out by his activity. But he is a darling. Dr Burns insisted we keep Jacky Boy here because he himself is concerned about getting Mrs Paterson's general health back to normal. Specially her nerves.' Jodi, looking down at the child, smiled gently as she tucked him in again, then kissed one finger and planted it on his forehead. 'May angels guard you, Jacky Boy,' she whispered. She turned and saw Alec looking at her thoughtfully. 'My mother said that to me every night—"May angels guard you",' Jodi said. 'Funny, and very un-grown-up, I suppose, but I've always thought—or imagined—that that's exactly what the angels did do. All because my mother wished it for me. I have a wonderful mother and father.' For the flash of a moment Jodi was tempted to tell Alec her story, and that her 'parents' had adopted her. She had told Simon Mansion on that gorgeous night out. He had seemed more impressed than surprised. 'You must have a very good mother,' Alec said quietly. 'Does she look like you? 'No. No, not at all . . .' Jodi said, uncertain again. She would like to go on with her story but she was not sure that he really wanted to know. He was only being conversational tonight because he was tired, and had a headache. He was using this time to relax. Jacky Boy turned in his cot. Alec leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes. Jodi looked at him, and wondered a little. There was something strange and very vulnerable about a man like Alec Jardene sitting there with his eyes closed. His long lean body

was at rest now. Something she hadn't seen before. His strong hands were lying quite still on the arms of that old chair. He looked so very tired. It troubled Jodi, but only because something about him—sitting there—caught at her heartstrings. His guards were really down. He was defenceless. He needed quiet and rest. A woman's touch perhaps? But then he'd had Annabelle on and off for two days! And Carina when he'd come home to base! He opened his eyes, and looked across the short distance—straight into Jodi's compassionate and anxious eyes. He smiled—a sort of victory smile—as if he'd caught her out, instead of it being the other way around.

A car streamed up the track and braked to a skidding halt under the trees outside. 'That's Ron! With the buns, I hope,' Jodi said. She turned the stove flame up, to bring the kettle to the boil. Ron came up the steps of the Unit and pushed open the wire screen. 'Ron,' said Alec slowly, without moving, 'if you burn the tyres off that management car every time you brake like that you'll pay for the next lot out of your own pay packet. Do you get the message?' 'Okay, okay, okay Boss!' Ron said blandly. 'If I'd known you were here I'd have prowled up like a raking dingo. You should leave you car bang in front of the Unit. A kinda warning, if you know what I mean.' 'Did you remember the buns, Ron dear?' Jodi asked. 'I brought the buns all right. They're right here,' Ron said. 'Move over from that stove, Sister Dean. The Official Orderly will now make the tea. Or is it coffee?' 'It's tea,' Alec said, not moving. 'You didn't see my car outside because Annabelle drove me up, then borrowed the car. I'm waiting to be called for.' Jodi, reaching for the cups and saucers, felt a sad let down. He wasn't taking rest in a restful company after all! He was merely waiting for Annabelle! 'How lucky can you be, Boss,' Ron went on. 'Beauty and the Beast—though Annabelle wouldn't see the beastly part in you, that's for sure.' Jodi looked from one to the other in surprise. How strangely easy-going they were with each other. Yet when authority talked—people like Ron almost sprang to attention. Ron was already buttering buns but he took time off to wink at Jodi.

'Not to worry, Sister Dean!' he said. 'When you've ridden the best horses neck to neck at the local races year after year there isn't anything you can't say to the other fellow. We've been saying everything printable and unprintable to each other for years.' 'Quite right, Ron. But tonight we are not racing horses,' Alec said bluntly. 'Well, I guess you're right there, Alec. I guess I'm about the only clown in this court who'd mistake a Medical Unit for the Jockey Club.' 'Agreed,' Alec said, still not moving. His eyes were almost veiled with tiredness now. 'Thank you, Jodi, I'll have my tea black. Not too much butter on that bun, please, Ron.' Alec looked up as Jodi brought his tea to him. In case I forget to tell you later, Jodi, Mrs Lome—she was a nurse before marriage—is willing to come in regularly and relieve Mary on some afternoons. I don't want Mary wearing out. She has her own home to look after. Mrs Lome will also relieve you for two nights, Jodi. Simon Mansion is coming up on Tuesday. I suppose that is about when you'd like to have those nights off?' He helped himself to sugar from the bowl she held in her free hand, and watched the eddies in his tea as he stirred it. 'Simon, in his own inimitable fashion, suggested that procedure himself.' His eyes looked up, straight into hers again. Jodi's spirits had lifted. Her eyes had brightened. She didn't mind Alec's enquiring eyes now. She felt a sudden release from the strange feeling she had had as Alec had sat with closed eyes earlier. She was herself again, and happy! Simon—someone who belonged to her, in a way—was coming! It was like someone coming from afar—perhaps the bearer of good news! 'That's Simon's way,' she said. 'He's organizing me. But it's dear of him. He was the first friend I had in this country. And the best—' Alec watched her, standing by his chair—the sugar bowl held at a dangerous angle in one hand—while she brushed back a wisp of her hair with the other. Her smile was one of undisguised happiness. It seemed to him uninhibited, and so real. So Simon greatly pleases, does he? he thought. What now about the lost one whose existence lured her to Australia in the first place? Out of the quiet of the night came the sound of cars arriving. Alec turned his head, listening. 'That's Annabelle with my car,' he said. 'The other rattle-can is Robson's job,' Ron added as he went to the door. 'Hold everything, Jodi, in addition to Annabelle I'll wager you have another patient for the night.'

Alec drained his tea with a gulp. 'In that case I'll go now,' he said. He stood up and put the cup and saucer on the work table. 'See what the complaint is, will you, Ron?' Ron was already down the steps. He moved over the scattered leaves and gravel to the Robsons' car. 'Not to worry, Boss!' he called, his voice sounding clear in the still night air. 'Your charming chauffeur's here for one. For the other, young Jill Robson fell out of bed and has a cricket-ball lump on the back of her head. Leastways that's what her father says.' 'Goodnight Jodi,' Alec said, his face a closed book again. 'Thank you for the aspirin. And for the tea. I'll see you on my usual rounds tomorrow night.' He reached the wire door and held it open with one hand. Then he turned. She thought there was a wicked look about his half-smile. 'By the way,' he added, 'you didn't enter those two aspirins in the medical book. Nor did you ask for my signature as the patient treated. Something of special impact made you forgetful, Jodi. My turn to make a score, I think!' He went through the door. Jodi stood in a glazed sort of way listening to his footsteps crossing the rough ground. He had actually cracked a joke! And taken a little wicked pleasure at scoring from her. Well! she thought, shaking her head. Wonders will never cease. It made her feel even more happy tonight—in spite of the 'charming chauffeur' outside, waiting to whisk him away!

'Bring Jill in, will you, Ron?' Jodi called. 'Perhaps her father would like to come too! Ask him, will you?' Cuts came and went, bruises came and went, a boil on a young girl's backside had to be lanced. A man with acute ear-ache had to have his ear channel washed out, then be put to bed with a sedative till it had cleared up twentyfour hours later. Jacky Boy was so excitably well it was a shame to keep him any longer in the Unit. Mrs Lome, who came to visit the team a few days later, agreed with Jodi and Mary Roberts. He was long since well enough to go home. Jacky Boy's cough had gone and clearly he was no longer infectious. All this was duly reported over the transceiver to Dr Burns at Cracker Creek. 'Okay, Jodi,' the doctor's voice came over. 'Send the young whippersnapper home. He's on the mend and home is the proper place for him now. Too much spoiling going on in that Unit. Any more pox spots showing up on the other side of the river? Over.'

'No, Dr Burns. Not a sign of spots but a few rachety coughs around. Over.' 'Watch them. This may be the common cold, no more. Looks as if the epidemic is on the wane, if not finished. Call me at the usual time tomorrow. Over and out' So Jacky Boy had been bathed and dressed in the new blue and white suit his mother had sent up for the special occasion. His fair hair had been brushed till it shone like a halo round his little head. He does have an angel face, Jodi thought, with a little catch at her heart. He's such a sweetie, but oh what mischief, now that he's better! He had been running about for some time and Mary, who was on day duty, had reported she never knew where he was from one minute to the next. When her back was turned he was out and amongst the trees or under the Unit before she could snap her fingers. For Jodi on night duty he had been awake with the birds. His greatest joy was to share her early morning cup of tea, then play hidy with his bedclothes while she tidied up the Unit. For the life of her she couldn't scold him. He had quite won her heart and by the mischievous look he gave her she guessed he knew it. At last the early morning came which ended Jodi's long spell of night duty. She had taken Jacky Boy home herself, the morning before, and she felt there was nothing really worrying about the duty she now left for Mrs Roberts and later for Mrs Lome, who had come at this last hour to check up on details. 'Keep your fingers crossed,' she said when she was ready to leave. 'You should go back to the quarters and have a good sleep today ready for tonight. Mary will be here any minute now. It should, with luck, be a good night tonight. Mrs Elkin has a sedative, and she sleeps fairly well. It's in the record book. I think her trouble is only temporary but you need to call Dr Burns and report before you go off duty in the morning if you have any doubts. The details are in the night book.' She looked half sadly at the cot in the corner. 'The star patient has gone. Everybody fell in love with him. Poor Mary, being on day duty, had most of the running about after him. Matt told me last night that though yesterday was his first day home he ran off, trying to find his way back to the Unit. They caught up with him just in time. still, he must have liked us up here, don't you think? Else he wouldn't have wanted to come back?' 'Of course he liked you. I think he really loved you—the little monkey. A "wandering" child is always a worry though. Jodi, I hope you didn't spoil him too much.' 'Dr Burns said the same thing. After all, when children are sick enough to be in hospital, nurses do spoil them just a little.' 'I'll take your advice, Jodi, and have a good afternoon's sleep before signing on in the evening.'

'Oh, I forgot to tell you about Ron Stevens. He's the hospital orderly. He's great fun and very amusing. Also a great help. Nothing is too much trouble for him. You'll see him thundering up those three steps later. Now I'm off to get a little sleep. Beauty sleep, I hope. Tomorrow is Tuesday, and it's a special day tomorrow. Alec has an extra passenger in his plane, coming up from the city. That is, besides Annabelle. It's a very special friend of mine.' 'Must be a man if it's beauty sleep you're thinking about,' Mrs Lome said with a knowing smile. 'Come to think of it someone told me about him in the canteen. Seems all Tarrara knows—' 'Oh no!' Jodi said, making a face. 'Don't tell me—' 'It's a source of gossip? Yes. It's a small town, Jodi, and even the tiniest bit of news is something they grasp to take their minds off their real and quite dreadful troubles. Don't begrudge them a little head-nodding. Specially about the doings of the two English girls they find in their midst.' 'Don't tell me that Carina and I—?' 'Oh yes, Carina and you. I'm sorry, Jodi, but even when you washed your faces or chased Jacky Boy from under the caravan everyone knew about it. It's all kindly, and almost exciting too. You've given them something to think about other than their troubles. Of course, the marriage game is on—' 'Oh no! Surely not so soon!' 'Oh yes! Ron Stevens is almost throwing his hat at your feet. At Carina's too. Carina is using more make-up and a better hair style and getting very proprietorial about Mr Jardene, her boss. They think this is fun because they're certain Annabelle Stacy would never let anyone take over from her. Not even such a pretty girl as Carina is. Then of course there was the evening when Alec flew back from Perth and spent two and a half hours sitting in the Unit talking to the new resident nurse—' 'What rot!' Jodi said, half cross, half amused. 'He had a headache and came in for some aspirin. It's entered in the book. Look! Read it for yourself.' Mrs Lome laughed. 'Don't be cross, Jodi. It was only a joke. It was all good-natured talk. They all knew Annabelle was at a Country Women's Association meeting and that he was only waiting for her. still ... if you want to hear the best part of the news . . . they were very pleased Alec had bothered to come up and pay you some attention. They all like you, Jodi.' Jodi's ruffled feathers settled down again. 'That's nice of them.' She was appeased, and surprised. 'I thought . . . my being a stranger from over the sea ... oh well! Never mind that! Now I suppose they've all settled back with their sewing to watch what goes on when Simon comes tomorrow?'

'Exactly. Do be a darling and give them something to talk about.' 'Like what?' 'Oh, come in at some ghastly hour of the morning. Or go walking in the bush, arms linked. Even if there's nothing in it, they'll love it.' 'You mean I'm to put on a show specially for them? They ought to ask Carina for that one. She's an adept. Meantime Simon might have different ideas.' 'Well, we'll all wait and see. Jodi dear, go and have that beauty sleep. And good luck for your holiday. I'll wait till Mary arrives.' 'Two days' holiday! and nights free too!' Jodi amended as she went through the door. 'For me the nights will be the most important . . .' Oh dear, she thought, sorry she had spoken. Now that bit about the nights, when repeated, could sound like the wrong thing. I ought to pin up a notice in the canteen to the effect I will only be enjoying my nights . . . because I'm not on duty.

Jodi slept through the morning, then spent that afternoon doing her washing and tidying up her shared room with Carina. She turned out her drawers, rehung her dresses in the tiny wardrobe, put wild flowers in a vase on the dressing table and washed her hair. Everything she did with a feeling of wanting to sing, or dance. Beautiful daylight! she thought. And beautiful, beautiful freedom! Only once were her spirits a little down and that was when she thought that being pinned to a job— as needs must—she wouldn't have time to go searching for her lost brother. Perhaps it had been a little ridiculous to think, in coming to Australia, she would be free to go on a long search. But Alec had promised her a week or two's spell sometime. Meanwhile, dear darling Simon was asking all the relevant questions through his contacts in the Goldfields. In that time she might, with luck, have some guidelines. She would have found her feet more surely in this new country by then. And Simon was coming tomorrow in any case. It would be almost like Christmas Day and Bank Holiday rolled in one! Her spirits rose again, and she set off for Mrs Paterson's makeshift home, not only to see Jacky Boy but to take Mrs Paterson some magazines her mother had sent from England and with which she had now finished. Mrs Paterson's 'nerves' were on the mend but still needed a little 'cheer-up' medicine. That night some neighours of the Patersons had asked her to stay to dinner, and afterwards they had played cards. Her host had driven her back to the quarters quite late. Though Jodi had slept soundly in the morning she had been quite busy in the afternoon. She now felt very tired, but her spirits were still high!

Tomorrow, about lunch-time or later. Simon would come! What news would he bring with him? It was right on midnight when she tiptoed into the quarters. 'Don't keep that light on too long, please Jodi,' Carina protested as she lifted her head from her pillow. 'I'm that tired I could go to sleep for a week.' 'Your man left you too much to do in his absence?' Jodi asked lightly. 'You ought to have him trained by this time.' 'Well I haven't trained him yet. I'm worn out with an inner straggle. I wait on him hand and foot. I charm him. I do everything perfectly, and he just takes it all for granted.' 'But he's still "your man"?' 'Did you ever know me give up?Even in the face of fearful odds? Now you've woken me up properly, hand me a cigarette like a pet. And the ash tray too.' Jodi did as she was asked then began pulling her dress over her head, kicking off her shoes at the same time. 'So what's the hindrance to a rip-roaring success for you?' she asked, barely interested because this Carina-talk she had heard before, and it was her own turn to want beauty sleep. 'Oh, a beautiful dame, if you can call her a hindrance. I'd call her an obstacle. Easy to talk to. Helpful. Nicely groomed. Friendly. Sweet—in the charmingest way! She just has to crook a little linger and off my man goes to do some timewasting with her. Two days in the city with her this time. And two nights!' Jodi's dress was off. Her slip came next. She sat on the edge of her bed to pull off her stockings. 'You mean he's time-wasting when he gets in that nice white and red Cessna of his and goes flying off to Perth? Well, why not? I suppose she's not the only passenger he takes?' 'Blow the other passengers. They're always men. They're not charming, not beautiful, not feminine.' 'Nor have first claim?' Jodi asked lightly. Carina blew a long spiral of smoke in the air. 'You can talk, Jodi,' she said with envy. 'You have that gorgeous Simon Mansion arriving to hold your hand. What about me? The only dashing man in sight other than Alec Jardene is Ron Stevens. And he—meaning Ron Stevens— doesn't own thousands of acres. He's not landed gentry, if you know what I mean.' Jodi laughed, not unsympathetically.

'That ought to teach you to settle for the man himself, and not a hunk of land,' she said. 'At least you would have someone to—well—belong to you.' She started for the door into the shower. 'Watch it, Jodi!' Carina pretended menace. I might decide to take Simon Mansion from you. How would you like that? However—on second thoughts —I doubt it.' She blew another spiral of smoke ceilingwards. 'I'll stick to the Boss, acres or no acres. I can't bear to be beaten in a battle of wits by a carefree dame like sweet Annabelle. She smokes menthol cigarettes and doesn't remember to empty the ash-tray in the Office before she goes home at nights. What a give-away is that!' Jodi, already under the shower, poked her head through the open door. 'What? Every night?' she asked. 'She comes in every night?' 'Oh no, silly!' Carina said, exasperated. 'Once, twice or thrice in a week. Even Mr Big-Time Jardene has to catch some sleep sometimes. still, she shouldn't leave the evidence behind. I'm not the only one who goes inside the Office and spots those menthol butts in the ash tray!' Jodi thought it best not to ask any more questions. Any moment now she might find herself involved in all the talk round the town. 'Carina,' she said later, coming out of the shower, 'doesn't it strike you how remarkable all the people are? I mean, after such a catastrophe? So much courage?' 'Well, they are getting brand new houses with government help. Most of them are beginning to realize those old frame and iron-roofed houses they had before are just as well to have gone with the wind. That's one very high mark they all give to my Boss. He's battled with governments and shires and mayors. He'll end up getting the people something they never dreamed of. Brick and tile, for sure. As for the town's amenities! Phew! It'll be a kind of paradise —if they wait long enough.' 'That's why they think such a lot of Alec' 'That, and for other reasons. Do you know he does it voluntarily? Without pay? Most of them realize only a pretty rare person could manage them under such circumstances.' 'Yes . . .' Jodi was thoughtful as she towelled her hair by the window. 'He really has something, hasn't he? He's sort of—' For a moment her eyes looked dreamy. 'Hey, hey, Jodi! Not you too! Annabelle might have staked Number One claim, but I've got Number Two. No room for any more!' Jodi wanted to laugh, but somehow the laugh wouldn't come. Third in the line, she thought. One would have to have more than luck! One would

have to have everything! She stopped towelling her hair and stood quite still, staring at Carina, yet not seeing her. A painful thought had put itself into words. She felt quite shocked at herself. She'd better jump into bed quick, damp hair and all. Besides, Carina, having delivered herself of news, now wanted to go back to sleep. Would it be 'sweet dreams' for them both?

CHAPTER NINE Jodi began her first wholly free Tuesday by having breakfast in the canteen with Carina. The grey light of early morning was giving way to the brilliant light of a latesummer day. Breakfast was quickly over. Other people had to go to work, so within minutes of downing her tea-cup Jodi found herself alone. As she walked through the door, she had a wonderful sense of exhilaration. It would be hot today. But not too hot. She was free! Simon Mansion would come sometime around midday. The eastern sky was turning from hazy grey to sea-blue; so clear and sparkling. The sun was on the point of rising, and Jodi's spirits were rising with it. She would go for a walk. A long beautiful walk through the bush. She would go exploring. The great Tarrara Rock for instance! It was somewhere off the west out-road. Matt had said the Rock was as wide as the town, high as the sky, and criss-crossed with water-carved gullies where ferns and nightflowering scrub-bushes grew. Somewhere in the gullies, created by overhanging rocks—Matt said—the ghingi lived. The ghingi, he explained, was the Aboriginal's version of the devil-spirit. Mary Roberts had later said that the ghingi stories were told by foolish mothers to warn their children to keep away from the area. The real purpose for the Rock's 'out-of-bounds' seclusion was because it was the watershed which provided the town's water supply. 'You ought to see it when you have some free time, Jodi,' Mary had suggested. 'These enormous rock intrusions over Western Australia must be some of the world's wonders. Huge things. Ayers Rock in Central Australia is the most famous of all. But Hyden Wave Rock, Bruce Rock, and Tarrara Rock are wonders to behold too. For my cup of tea I find Tarrara Rock too stark and formidable. still, it's something that ought to be seen once in a lifetime, anyway.' Jodi took her sun hat and set out, walking at first along the wide track to the

west, then along a narrow through the bush. Sometimes she just wanted to stand and stare. Each time she did so she looked about her, not only at the landscape but to pick her landmark as Alec had warned her to do. Once or twice when she stood still, looking around her, she had again the strange feeling that the bush was watching her. Or that some being was shadowing her. This was not a frightening feeling, but it was a weird one. She caught herself looking round quickly, perhaps in hope that she would spot some soft-footed bush animal following her. Or a bird hopping from bush to bush. She laughed a little at herself. All of this was quite absurd, she knew. Except for snakes, whatever was in the bush was harmless. The occasional shuffle of dried leaves, or a dead twig on the ground cracking, she decided, was caused by the change of temperature because the land was heating up so quickly. Gum leaves and twigs were combustible. Now, she thought, she knew the origin of the ghingi! It was no more than the stillness of the grey bush blanket, and the heat raising the temperature of the whole land, causing odd pita-patting sounds in the undergrowth. Jodi considered this quite a discovery, and she felt very pleased with herself. She absolutely refused to look round again. There would be nobody following her! The bush wasn't going to trick her any more. Specially on one of her first free days since she had come to Tarrara! If that grey sea of bush wanted to watch her—well, it had her permission. She could see Tarrara Rock in the distance, but she didn't think she'd go right up to it now. There was something formidable and uncanny about it. So huge, vast, and even a little frightening! It rose up from the land like a great primeval monster: still, but like the bush, watching and waiting.

From far over to the north-east—beyond the rock—came distant and familiar sound. A car was coming along the track that had forked from the out-road. The sound of a fast-moving engine, then the dust smoke, like a signal, gave way to the real car which came bowling round the distant comer of the Rock. Jodi stood still and watched it. Then, through the dust pall, she saw the long lines of the car and recognized it. It was Alec's car. She forgot the pit-patting 'presence' that had bothered her. Instead her spirits rose as she watched the car curve between the wattles, then head towards the taller trees on the Tarrara-bound road. There were three people in the car. Alec was driving. The girl beside him with her arm along the back seat, as if touching him, had to be Annabelle. The posture was more than friendly. It was familiar. Jodi shaded her eyes with her hand so she could see better. The passenger in the back seat was Simon! Hurray, he had come!

Dear Simon! she thought. I've known him for such a little time yet he's a real friend. A dear friend! The world's a wonderful place, after all.

The car was standing under the shade of a sapling tree outside Alec's office, when Jodi arrived back in the town. There was no one in it. The passengers must all be inside. What do I do now? she wondered. Intrude? I might get myself a snub... 'Hullo, Jodi!' She spun round. No, it was not Simon. It was Ron Stevens. 'How's the day off, Nurse dear?' Ron asked jokingly. 'What-for are you standing looking at Alec's door with that very peculiar look on your extra-pretty face?' 'Oh Ron, don't be silly,' Jodi begged, with a laugh. Her eyes were sparkling and her smile was quite lovely. Ron, noting these signs, leaned against a gum. He shoved his hat to the back of his head and began to roll himself a cigarette. There was something rueful in his grin now. 'You for the carpet, or something?' he asked. 'You been breaking Alec's rules? You know what, Jodi, I sometimes think we're back in school in this town. Maybe we're in a concentration camp, or something.' 'Ron, be a dear and don't say silly things just now. I've my mind on other affairs—' 'Got it!' he interrupted. 'I know what it is. Someone came in by plane today. The village bird has let it be known. It wouldn't be Simon Mansion who's brought that joyful cheer to your smile?' 'I know all about the village bird, Ron. We wouldn't have much fun if we didn't have something to talk about— true or false—would we? If you must know I've been for an early morning walk out towards the catchment area, I've now seen Tarrara Rock for myself.' 'Forbidden ground!' Ron began. 'Besides, that place does not cheer. Ever. Something else must be on your mind. I've a—' Whatever he was about to say remained unsaid. The wire-screen door of Alec's office opened. Simon was looking towards them as he came out. Then he recognized Jodi. 'Sweetheart!' he cried cheerily and held out his arms. 'Why weren't you waiting for me on a welcome-mat?' 'I guess she doesn't like being matted in this particular vicinity,' Ron said. They were not listening to him. 'I guess three is not company—' he finished. 'Well, I'll be going now, if it pleases you!' He walked away without waiting

for apologies. Whether it was the lovely morning, the quiet incurious bush or the awful, aged loneliness of that mammoth rock, that made her do what she did next, Jodi never after knew. She went straight into Simon's arms. For one long minute she could not lift her head because though she didn't cry, she very nearly did. Carina, in her mindless way of thinking, belonged to 'her man'—Alec Jardene. Alec belonged to Annabelle or to both of them. Who knows? Ron Stevens belonged to the whole town. Now Simon was here. She, Jodi, had someone too! Ron's birdlike whistle, as he walked away, was meant to remind those about of the bird-talk in the town. Simon was too obviously delighted to be holding Jodi in his arms to heed that whistle. The world looking on, at that moment, consisted of one man and his wife driving up in an old jalopy to hold conference with the administrator: and Annabelle who had come into the office doorway. She was now looking half surprised, half amused. A second later Alec Jardene arrived in the doorway too. He stood head and shoulders above Annabelle, and just behind her.

'I think we'd better retire,' he suggested. He put a hand on her shoulder and, in effect, turned her round. Jodi heard the screen door close with a faint hissing sound of the air-spring. 'Hey, hey!' Simon said, standing her away from him so he could really look at her. 'What goes, Jodi sweet? Am I really as popular as all this? If so, hurray! Sure you're not just homesick, or something? It has been known to happen. Some can't stand -the bush. But don't let me down later, will you?' Jodi, her arms released, pushed her slightly dishevelled hair away from her forehead. Her smile was the smallest bit apologetic but was struggling for laughter. 'I'm all right,' she said. 'Simon, you must think me mad. I'm not homesick and I love the beastly bush. It's got me in. You came out of that door at what I've heard called —the psychological moment. I'll tell you about it later. Am I forgiven for throwing myself into your arms like that?' 'Well, I did hold them out. And I did like the result.' 'Expecting me to take your hands but not to try to chew your ear off?' 'Didn't I tell you I was delighted? I'm getting more and more that way every minute. The country, heat and all, does you good. Wow, but you look lovely in that nice fashionable tan! Here, grab my hand. One hand this time. Let's do

a Jack-and-Jill-went-down-the-hill to the canteen. Tea, coffee or ginger ale? What's your fad for this hour of the morning?' Jodi took Simon's hand. They went down the sloping track towards the canteen. Their clasped hands were swinging together.

'Phew!' remarked Carina, standing at the filing cabinet, looking through the window. 'Some people certainly make fun turning a mere track into a newstyle Lovers' Lane.' Annabelle joined Carina at the window. 'So!' she said, pursing her mouth half in thought, half in amusement. 'Simon and Jodi really do make it, don't they? How long has that been going on, Carina?' 'They met three times in Simon's office,' Carina said, counting on her fingers. 'Then he took her to morning tea twice. And to dinner twice. The first dinner was after their second meeting—so that was quick work. The second time he took her to dinner was the night before we left to come up here. Of course he saw us off, but I was twit enough to think he was seeing us both off. Me too!' 'Seems not,' Annabelle remarked carelessly. "Keep your spirits up, Carina. There's lots of men round Tarrara. You ought to go out to some of the farms. I did speak to Jodi about that. You too, didn't I? I must get Alec to arrange it soon. Seeding is the best time now. For heaven's sake look at those two! still holding hands! Simon is something of a ladies' man. Perhaps it takes a girl fresh from another country to knock him right off his bachelor pedestal.' Neither of them saw Alec lift his head and look at them. 'Depends what you mean by "fresh",' Carina said brightly. 'You ought to have seen the fun some of us knocked up on that ocean cruise.' 'Carina!' Alec's voice broke in, very formal. 'If you must talk idly do it out of working hours. Meantime have you found me that file? I want the MidNorthern Insurance Company's dispute with R. Thornton's claim against the total destruction of his house.' 'I have my hand right on it,' Carina said, fast back to being the professional secretary. 'I think I'll take off,' Annabelle said. I may not be in for a day or two. The crop-dusters are due out at our place, as you know.' She came back to the table. 'Do you want the men to follow on at Mandura? Last year they were dated for Mandura straight after finishing with us.' Alec was pencilling notes on correspondence that Carina was to type later. He was peeling off one page after another as if he knew the contents of each letter with a single glance. He threw his pencil down on the table and leaned back

in his chair. Then he stood up. 'Sorry, Annabelle,' he said. He brushed his fingers through his hair in an absent way. I'll have to cut out some of those flights down south. The correspondence catches up and outruns me.' 'You have Carina now, darling. Remember? Someone to help. Didn't you say she was quite a wizard?' Annabelle idly touched a rural magazine on the corner of the table. Carina bridled and hoped she would catch Alec's eye. But it was not Carina's day. Alec was preoccupied with some other problem. He had a troubled look. He walked over to the window and leaned both hands on the sill as he looked down the track towards the settlement. Annabelle gave a polite yawn. 'Alec darling,' she said. 'We're both tired. We had quite a late night last night, didn't we? So please answer just one question. It's important. Do you want the crop-dusters when they finish with us?' Carina put the required file on Alec's table then retired to the chair behind her typewriter. Instead of tapping the keys she examined her fingernails. Her head was cocked slightly on one side. So! she said to herself, disconsolate. Annabelle's one up on me. I have late days working for the beast, but she has LATE NIGHTS with him, and not even working. It could be love-making of course. Me oh my! Wait till I tell Jodi the miserable life I have competing with that dame for MY MAN!' 'I don't know that I can manage it,' Alec was saying through half-closed lips that meant he was fantastically busy, but was also withdrawn. He swung round, leaned against the window frame, and reached in his pocket for a cigarette. 'Have one?' He held out the packet towards Annabelle. 'I'm sorry,' he said. 'I was thinking of something else—' 'Of course, Alec. But come back to earth for one minute will you?' She moved towards him at the window. She took a cigarette, as she looked up at him with her own particularly sweet and sympathetic smile. 'What you need is an overseer to see that the crop-dusters do the job. That would relieve your manager. That's the worry, isn't it? What's wrong with my playing overseer for you? After all, I do manage my own crop-dusting.' Over the lighting of the cigarettes Alec looked up ... as Carina noticed . . . almost gratefully—right into Annabelle's eyes too. 'You mean it?' he asked. Through the first puff of smoke Annabelle smiled back at him. 'Of course I mean it,' she declared. 'And well you know it. Alec dear, don't think I'm doing it only for you, my pet, will you? I'm doing it for the people of Tarrara—as my little contribution.'

To Carina, peeking at the pair by the window from behind her typewriter, Alec gave his first smile for the day. And it's such a beautiful smile! Carina noticed sadly, and fell to pounding the typewriter keys till they sounded like the sporadic rattle of machine-gun bullets. All the same, her thoughts ran on as fast as her fingers, I'm learning something of Miss Annabelle's technique. She fronts up to him, and gives him that true-blue smile while she's doing it. I must stop being the willing and adoring slave. First I must learn that smile. It's a guaranteed winner. Jam for the taste of it, and cream for the charm of it! Carina dropped her hands from the typewriter. God was just too kind to Annabelle—when it came to looks! She replaced the sheet of paper in her machine with a new one. Ah well! she went on talking to herself. Wait till I tell Jodi. Maybe I can learn something even from Jodi. Look how she's made a mash of Simon! In a mere handful of meetings too!

In the canteen, regardless of all eyes looking on, Simon was holding Jodi's hand across the table. 'I haven't been wasting my time, Jodi. I've done some preliminary researching on that brother of yours. The Eastern Goldfields—that is Coolgardie and the Golden Mile between Kalgoorlie and Boulder—is a sort-of inbred place. Somebody mentioned that before? Everybody knows everybody from the top of the mining ladder to the bottom. Also the Mines Department has records of all claims and leases: licences to mine. This goes for prospectors as well as companies. With luck I can get someone to research for me. You're sure there's no chance of giving me a name?' 'No name,' Jodi said, shaking her head regretfully. Simon, you are a darling. Why are you doing this for me?' 'Something mildly catching about you, sweetie. Besides, always wanted to be a detective. Great fun. I've half a mind to set myself up as a research officer. Might be some money in it. I'm great at making money—being an agent. The Stock and Station Agency is only half my business— I'm a general and professional Know-All. If I don't know, I find out. Besides, there's a nickel boom on right now and I like to know what's going on. Easy enough to make enquiries while one's after the scent of nickel.' Jodi laughed, as Simon had meant her to laugh. 'No name,' Jodi said again sadly. 'Neither my brother's name nor that of the people who adopted him. Those facts are never released after adoption of a child.' 'We have dates, don't we?' Simon said. 'The thing is to find who of the gold-

mining fraternity went abroad in that crucial year. And came back with a son who was too old to have been born while they were abroad. That's the first move. The next move is to check up on a few old-timer retired families still living. Some of them have great memories.' 'You really think you might find a lead?' 'I'm dead certain someone will. If not in one month, then in six months.' Jodi pushed back her chair, leaned across the table, and kissed Simon on the forehead. 'I don't care who saw that,' she said. "You are a darling, Simon. How can I thank you? First you get me this job, then you start opening the gates of the Golden Mile for me.' 'Think nothing of it,' Simon said airily. 'My favourite role is knight errant to pretty girls from over the sea. Would you mind kissing me again—a little later. Preferably after dark?' 'Any time you ask, Simon.' Jodi felt really gay, and found laughter easy. The world was indeed a wonderful place. It was full of sunshine, and hopes that sparkled in the air like soap bubbles from a pipe. The eerie spell of Tarrara Rock had been broken for this day, anyway. There weren't any ghingis after all.

Jodi, later, exploring Tarrara with Simon, felt as if she had air cushions under her feet. Together they laughed and had so much fun. They were too busy enjoying themselves to care about onlookers. At sundown, Matt came running past them on the dried mud track to the old fallen-down township. He called out: 'Everyone has to watch out for Jacky Boy, Jodi! If he's not found in half an hour all the men have to go to the Administration Office to form a search party. He's been missing since morning.' Jodi stood paralysed in unbelieving silence. She heard Matt call the same message to another group further down the track. 'Everyone has to watch out for Jacky Boy Paterson! He's missing'— Jodi stared at Simon. 'I don't believe it ... I can't believe it....' she began. 'A lost child is not uncommon in the Australian bush,' Simon said thoughtfully, very serious now. 'Sometimes it's a man lost, or a woman, or even a whole party.' He took Jodi by the arm.

'Come on,' he said. 'We must be quick. If this boy is really lost—not just playing in some unusual place—time is the factor that counts, exhaustion, thirst, then collapse. That's the general pattern—' Jodi's face had gone sheet white. 'I don't believe it!' she said. 'He'd been sick but he's well now. Healthy and well. We had to keep him over time in the Unit because of Mrs Paterson's nervous condition—' 'Tell me as we go back to the settlement,' Simon said. There was urgency in his voice. They were running towards the administration block. 'How sick was the boy when he had chicken-pox, Jodi?' Simon asked as they ran. 'Was he weakened by it? I'm thinking about reserves of strength and stamina.' 'No, he wasn't really ill, not after the first day or two. It's been a very mild epidemic. He'd been playing about near the Unit for days before I took him home. He was hale and hearty. Quite lively.' 'He didn't wander away at all?' 'No . . . Yes. Wait a moment! Mary had him in the daytime and she said he was fond of running off and hiding, just for fun. Sort-of playing hide and seek. His mother said several times he was a great little wanderer . . .' 'Oh my God!' Simon gave himself up exclusively to running and to helping Jodi to keep pace beside him. Jacky Boy! she was thinking as she went. Jacky Boy. Come home! Come home!

CHAPTER TEN When Jodi and Simon reached the Office a large knot of people had already gathered there. 'Any news?' Simon asked quickly. 'No,' a bystander answered glumly. 'If you ask me the kid is asleep under a pile of iron and timber near one of the old houses. I've said all along we needed more'n one policeman here to keep the kids away from the flood area. They make a proper playground of those wrecks." 'You're maybe right,' a woman added. 'All the same, Jacky Boy's been called and cooee-ed ever since eleven o'clock this morning. His mum said even though he wanders away he most times comes if he's called. When it's a meal time, anyway.' Night was coming on quickly, as it always did. One minute it was daylight and five minutes later it was darkling. There was no twilight in this country. A light above the Office door was switched on. It shed a patterned glow outside and around the gravel square below the Office steps. It shot shafts of gold through the trees nearby. And also through the silent anxious group of

people standing about: some waiting the call to join one search party or another. Inside the Office Alec was sitting in a pool of light behind his desk, and Annabelle Stacy was at the side of the room attending to the transceiver set. Carina, very quiet for a change, was helping two men taking notes from a district map on a table at the far side of the room. Charlie Davis, the town's only policeman, was standing watching them. Saying nothing. Alec looked up when Jodi and Simon came in. 'I'm glad they found you,' he said to Jodi, unsmiling. 'You will be needed when they bring Jacky Boy in, whatever the hour. Mary Roberts has gone to the Paterson house. The mother needed sedatives and the baby needed attention. Stay on call, please.' 'Of course,' Jodi said. 'We . . . that is, Simon and I . . . came running the moment we heard what had happened.' Alec's eyes moved from Jodi to Simon. 'If you can help, Simon, stick around,' he said flatly. 'If not—' Simon put up one hand in a pretence of warding Alec off. 'Put your hackles down, Cousin, I'm raring and willing,' he said. 'Tell me where and I'm off at the count-down.' Alec's eyes were not amused. Jodi had a feeling nothing about Simon would ever amuse Alec again. 'There's a search team leaving from the temporary schoolhouse in about twenty minutes. That is, if no word has come in that Jacky Boy has been found by then,' Alec said. 'There are seven search parties being organized. They're collecting the necessary gear now. Lights, food, warm drinks, blankets. Spades, hatchets, clippers—you know the routine, Simon. You've been in the country a good many years, back awhile. You'll go in the town jeep as far as the perimeter now being mapped. Bob Thornton and his group are scouting out there now. Find out the rest for yourself when you get there.' 'Right!' Simon said. 'Shall do. You're mounting a full-scale search?' 'Exactly.' Simon turned to Jodi. 'Farewell, sweetie. I'll be . . .' 'Simon dear!' she interrupted in a whisper. 'Please! Not now—' He made a wry face, then kissed his finger and dabbed it on her mouth. 'I'm off. Will say no more!' He was as good as his word. The screen door clanged behind him. Annabelle, waiting for messages that might come through the transceiver, was aware of Alec's mounting coldness as he stared through half-closed eyes

at the departing Simon and then at Jodi. 'He's only helping Jodi to keep her spirits up, Alec,' she said quietly. 'He knows Jodi doesn't understand the bush. She could be a hazard herself. The bush can be very frightening to strangers.' Jodi closed her eyes, then opened them again. That bit about strangers again! Would it go on forever! 'I'm sorry I was out walking when I must have been most needed,' she said formally. 'What do you want me to do, Alec? I'm not afraid of the bush. I wonder about it, that is all. And I like it.' 'It's night time, if you haven't noticed that yet, Jodi.' Annabelle was lighting a cigarette as she spoke. 'The bush is quite different in the dark so you must be careful. We can't have two lost persons.' 'Be here, in case you are needed,' Alec said. His eyes seemed to be taking Jodi in. She held his gaze, her chin up. 'There are half a dozen men outside demanding to be sent off with one search group or another,' he went on. 'We need all the men we can get. So for the moment can you give Carina a hand with the lists? When we need your professional abilities we'll tell you.' 'Yes, of course.' Alec returned to his planning work on the table again. Above the head of one of the men now stooping over an ordnance map Carina made a tiny pouting grimace at Jodi. It said that Annabelle couldn't resist rubbing in the bit about being strangers to the bush, could she? And so nicely too! *** Outside the temperature dropped. Everyone standing about was thinking of a small lost boy out there in no-man's-land, where it was getting colder. Yet, though not needed, they could not go back to their own homes. *** The hours passed, and all had been done about organizing the search. Alec sat forward in his chair, his elbows on the table and his head in his hands. Not a word was spoken. Like the bush—they all simply waited. How long and straight his back is! Jodi thought, looking at Alec. He looks tired, and anxious. Oh dear! I'm thinking of these things while Jacky Boy is out there . . . alone and afraid. Maybe hurt. She put her face in her hands. She heard Alec draw in his feet, then the movement of his chair as he eased himself in it. 'Jodi,' he said, 'would you like a cup of coffee? The urn's still hot.'

Jodi dropped her hands and looked up. 'I would love some,' she said at once. He pushed back his chair and stood up. 'Good. I'll get it.' She was already on her feet. 'Oh no. I'll get it. Please . . .' Somehow they met face to face by the bench at the end of the room. There was something unexpectedly quizzical, then amused in his smile as he looked at her. 'Are you one of those people from over the sea who believes Australian men always have to be waited on by the other sex? Do you think we don't know how to make a cup of tea? Or a pot of coffee?' he asked. His smile lit an answering glow in Jodi's eyes. It seemed to go through her and warm her. At the same time it made the world spin fractionally on its axis. She might have been light-headed. 'No,' she said truthfully. 'Ron Stevens has taught me a lot about who makes the tea, or coffee. And who does the waiting.' 'Good for Ron. Now it's my turn. I'll pour the coffee.' *** In the bleak grey hours of early morning, while the trees stood whispering still and the grasses did not stir, seven men by seven men by seven men the search parties came back. They came in slowly, tired and anxious, each hoping some other party had good news. But no one had found Jacky Boy yet. *** 'Right!' Alec said, addressing the men in the canteen where they sat around sipping coffee, while Annabelle with her most friendly and persuasive smile brought them sugar, hot scones and coffee rolls. These last she admitted — very modestly—she had baked with her own well-manicured but competent hands. 'You've done your best, fellers,' Alec said. 'Now you need a spell of rest.' 'Okay, Alec,' one said. 'You tell us what's next. That kid's still out there and it was raking cold last night.' 'We'll call the North West Mounted Police,' Alec said shortly. 'What we want, and are going to ask for, is Tom Arnold, the tracker.' 'Tom Arnold'.' The name resounded around the room. 'You mean,' someone asked, incredulous, 'the famous Tom Arnold?' 'Yes. I'll take my plane up north and I'll bring him back myself—if the Mounted Police will lend him. Agreed?'

'Agreed!' The combined voices were a single sound that almost had hope in it. No one doubted for a minute that the North West Mounted Police would do anything but co-operate. 'Agreed! Agreed! Agreed! We're with you to a man.' Alec caught Annabelle Stacy's eyes across the room. 'How's the chauffeur this morning?' he asked her over half a dozen heads. Her clear, quite spectacular smile came back in answer. 'Ready, fit and willing!' she answered. 'Excuse me, I'm off to warm up the engine.' 'But why does he have to have a chauffeur?' Carina whispered to Jodi as Annabelle disappeared in a flurry of smiles and gracious good manners through the door. 'Possibly for company! Supposing we ask him one day?' Jodi was just that much irritated. 'I'm caring more about Jacky Boy just now,' she finished. She turned towards the canteen door. Where, she wondered, was Simon? He had not come in with the other men from his search party. Half an hour later Annabelle drove Alec out to Mandura where his Cessna plane was housed. She brought his car back to Tarrara while Alec himself set about refuelling and tuning up the small craft. In the grey early hours of the morning the anxious town people heard the plane overhead. Jodi guessed Alec was letting them all know he was on his way. Something was being done. That precious 'morale' was getting a booster-shot. Everywhere people ran out—Jodi among them—to see the red-striped silver aircraft, the early light just touching its wings, fly away to the north. 'That's him all right,' the newly arrived engineer from the Water Supply Department said. 'You can tell a Cessna anywhere by the sound of the engine. Look, he's dipping his wing. That's a salute to the town. He's sky-calling us. That'll lift people's spirits some!' Jodi stood in a strange, transfixed way. It was not only Jacky Boy she thought of now. Somehow Alec had become someone with wings of magic dipping and lifting and flying away up there in the sky. He was a miracle man who would come back, and Jacky Boy would be saved. She wished she could have gone with him. She wished it so very much! Back inside the quarters and despite Carina's apparently sleeping figure, Jodi said aloud—all but stamping her foot— 'I want a cold shower, a hot cup of tea, and if that doesn't knock sense into me I'll start banging my head on the door and see what happens then. First Jacky Boy, and now Alec. But mostly, mostly I want Jacky Boy home again!'

Suddenly there were tears in her eyes. She had only half slept in the rest period. She perhaps more than anyone else knew how close collapse could be to prolonged exposure. And Jacky Boy was so young! One of life's 'little ones'! Carina opened her eyes wide and stared at her roommate. 'Have you gone berserk or something, Jodi?' she asked. 'You were supposed to be asleep,' Jodi snapped. 'I wasn't. I just kept my eyes shut so you wouldn't interrupt my thoughts.' 'Oh. So you were thinking too?' 'Yes. But not out loud. It's such a give-away. Generally I do my thinking in silence. All the same, now seems the time to let you into this think-tank. My one. Want to hear?' 'If it's interesting. But hurry up, please, Carina. I want to get under the shower. I'm sorry I was so short. I guess the strain's telling, after all . . .' 'It's about Alec,' Carina said cautiously, watching the other closely. Jodi sat down on her bed and more in repentance than pleasure gave her attention to Carina. 'Well, here goes!' Carina said airily. 'Ready for the shock? Were you there when Annabelle made that snide remark about being Alec's right hand, as well as his left! Want to know what Mrs Sherman told me later while we were giving them all coffee?' 'Mrs Sherman?' Jodi wrinkled her forehead. 'Yes, the short stout one from the caravan right on top of the hill. She came in to say Mary Roberts had had to go to bed because of a splitting headache. Someone else was relieving her at Mrs Paterson's.' 'Please do hurry,' Jodi pleaded. 'I still want that shower. And that cup of tea." 'But you do remember Mrs Sherman?' 'Yes, I remember,' Jodi admitted, holding her patience, and her tiredness, steady. 'Well . . . Mrs Sherman told me . . .' Carina went on, still slowly, still watching the effect of her words. 'Please Carina! Finish the story, or I'll scream!' Jodi said. 'You will scream when you do hear this. Ready? Alec Fardene, the impenetrable, imponderable, and determined bachelor - to - make - all - other - bachelors – obsolete and - defunct, was once engaged to Annabelle Stacy. How's that? The ring on the left hand. Get the reference, Jodi?' Jodi's head went up involuntarily.

'You heard me,' said Carina briskly. 'They were engaged. Once upon a time they were lovers. I've a feeling they could be making up. What do you think?' 'You're the one making something up,' Jodi said almost desperately. 'I've known you do that before, my pet. Specially when you wanted to get your own way—' 'It's true, cross my heart! That's why I'm lying here, not moving and not sleeping either. I'm stunned. I've been stunned since midnight.' 'I bet you are.' Jodi stood up slowly and went towards the shower-room. 'Sorry, Carina. I suppose it does look like the return of love for Alec. It's as simple, and as obvious as that, when one thinks about their togetherness.' 'Yes, I know. But what shall I do to beat her to the deadline? It's only the deadline that matters. Undermine her? Throw my sex about with a will and a curvacious swish? I can if I want, and well you know it.' 'If that's your only weapon I'd give up now before you start,' Jodi said, beginning to disrobe. 'It strikes me that Alec would want something more than that. He's a highly intelligent man. He'd see through any pantomime.' 'Come off it, Jodi! He's a man, isn't he? He'd be as susceptible as any other man. Nature's irresistible call and all that!' 'Then why don't you try your blandishments on what you call "any other man"? Whatever Alec wants in a woman, Annabelle probably has it. Why else would he patching up an old love affair?' 'You know what, Jodi? You sound positively narkey. Is it because you haven't had any sleep, or because you too... have a thing about Alec Jardene? I've suspected . . .' 'I haven't had any sleep—as you remarked, Carina. What's more, the only thing I have a thing about is Jacky Boy. For the time being, anyway. I don't even know where Simon is. Nobody anywhere is going to care about lovelorn people. Not until Jacky Boy is found.' 'If found at all.' 'Carina! Someone forgot to give you enough strappings when you were young. Excuse me! I'm going into the shower.' Carina, left alone with her thoughts, took her nail file from the bedside table and began doing things to her nails like improving their shapes. I just don't figure Jodi out, she pondered, holding her hand away from her so she could admire her efforts. After all, she does have Simon Mansion. Look how she's worried about him now! I have no one, so why shouldn't I have a THING about Alecl And I don't mean a thing about his acres. Not any more, anyway.' When Jodi came back from the shower. Carina had finished her handwork

and turned her face to the wall. Once again she was feigning sleep. Jodi did not disturb her. *** That day wore on slowly. Everyone in Tarrara was beset with anxiety, yet reached for hope. Search parties were out again, and one party after another kept coming in to report—no success! All the small differences and problems between the people of Tarrara were forgotten. Every man, woman and child had one thought in mind. Was Jacky Boy still alive and well—wherever he was, a little boy lost in the bush?

At sundown a message was picked up on the transceiver via Cracker Creek outpost. Alec Jardene reported he had contacted the Mounted Police. They were willing to send Tom Arnold, the well-known tracker, to join the search. Alec would bring him down in the plane. The night wore its way through. Jodi was back in the Unit. Dr Burns, over the radio, had recommended sedation for Mrs Paterson but under supervision. So Mrs Paterson and the baby were also installed in the Unit. Mrs Lorne had gone home to make arrangements for her own family's meal, and Mary Roberts, relieved of her headache, was to take over from Jodi at the Unit shortly after breakfast. Through the night several of the men came in with abrasions bad enough to require treatment. One man had an injured foot. Between attending to these cases, giving a midnight feed to the Paterson baby and a hot drink to the drowsy mother, Jodi listened to the transceiver. The Flying Doctor Service was keeping the air open for any news to be relayed in or out of Tarrara. At midday, Jodi, still on watch at the Unit, turned the knob of the transceiver to answer a call signal. 'Danubbin Outpost calling UDK 9 Tarrara Medical Unit. You there, Miss Dean? Over.' 'Yes. Tarrara Medical Unit answering. Jodi Dean speaking. Over.' This is an urgent message. Alec Jardene's Cessna air-craft passed over Danubbin Outpost at eleven fifty-one this morning. He is carrying as passenger Mr Tom Arnold of the North West Mounted Police. The Police had flown Mr Arnold south to Carnarvon to rendezvous with Mr Jardene. Mr Jardene's plane should land at twelve forty-nine p.m. on the out-road to Cracker Creek from Tarrara. This is an official emergency landing at Tarrara. Please arrange team from Tarrara to keep out-road clear of traffic as from now. Repeat. As from now all traffic kept clear of the out-road to Cracker Creek. I repeat—estimated landing at twelve forty-nine p.m. Report back so we can guide the Cessna in landing. End of message. Over.'

'Jodi Dean replying to Danubbin Outpost. Thank you for message now received. Will call up team to man Cracker Creek out-road immediately. Will report back when landing ground clear. Over and out.' Jodi turned the transceiver off, and ran to the door. 'Matt! Matt! Where are you? Oh, there, thank God! Run for your life down to the Office and tell whoever is in charge to send any available men—and/or women—to the Cracker Creek out-road. See that Mr Davis the police-man is informed. Mr Jardene is landing on the out-road shortly. The message from Base said the people were to man, and keep all traffic off the road until the plane has landed. Have you got all that, Matt?' 'Will do!'' Matt saluted and was gone, a whirl of dust through the scrub towards the search headquarters in Alec's Office. Darling Matt! Jodi thought gratefully. Mary Roberts had just come up from the settlement. She saw Jodi standing in the doorway watching the dust rise from Mart's flying feet. 'News?' she asked. 'Yes. Alec's landing with the tracker about ten minutes to one. Do you think I should tell Mrs Paterson?' 'How is she?' 'Not too bad. She's still under sedation. She can understand what is said to her though.' 'You go off duty now, Jodi. I'll tell her if she seems to need news. I suppose any kind of news is better than a vacuum of silence.' 'I'll leave it to your judgment, Mary. You'll see in the Duty Book the amount of sedative Mrs Paterson has had this morning. It will have settled her a little. She may not need more. Dr Burns said he'd come through on the two-way at four o'clock. He'll tell you if and what to give her.' 'Good. Now you scramble off. Get yourself a snack and then—for goodness' sake—go and get some rest. Carina said you hardly slept last night' 'Will do!' Jodi said as she pulled off her white cap. She collected her bag and ran down the steps to the track. She had said 'Will do' to Mary to save an argument. She was short of sleep but not desperate about it. What she did know was that she was going to see Alec, and that famous tracker, come in. She had to know if and when she might be needed should they find Jacky Boy and bring him in. If alive, Jacky Boy would be exhausted from lack of water and food. He would be suffering from exposure. She would be needed. Oh, Jacky Boy! Something in Jodi wanted to weep a sea of tears, but she knew this she must

not do. The whole of her training had taught her that. From all corners of the encamped settlement people were already streaming out towards the out-road to Cracker Creek. This was little more than a gravel track that led to the nearest town of any size. Just now it could mean a short trip to happiness if Alec landed safely. And if the tracker found Jacky Boy. Funny, but Alec was the one Tarrara man in everyone's mind just now. Yet Annabelle—back at base at the Office transceiver set—was the only Tarrara person actually in touch with him—way off up there in the air. For the moment they really did belong—uninterrupted—to each other.

CHAPTER ELEVEN A search party had shortly come into Tarrara. The men looked tired and dirty but they turned about and tramped their heavy-booted way through a shortcut across the bush to the out-road without ado. When Jodi arrived, with Carina bringing up the rear, a makeshift boom of bedraggled brushwood and fallen tree branches had already been set up to the west, and to the east of the gravel stretch of road. A number of people were already patrolling the stretch in case some unexpected truck or car might be on its way to Tarrara from Cracker Creek. The North-West freezer track, bringing in new supplies of food, had already been stopped, and ordered to ease off the road into a natural lay-by. 'Hey!' the driver called, leaning out of his cabin. There's no sign of any plane coming in yet.' That's as may be,' replied Charlie Davis, the policeman. 'We're not taking any risks.' 'What goes, anyway?' 'A tracker is coming in by plane to look for a lost child.' 'Cripes! Why didn't someone tell me! Okay—move that mob along over there will you? I need to get this raking truck off on to hard ground, or she'll sink to the axles.' The trail of men from the last search party to arrive back in Tarrara—without news—could be seen beating their way through the bushy short-cut to help man the out-road. Charlie Davis mustered them off westwards to warn other trucks possibly on their way through to the east. Jodi, in a numbed kind of way, watched the policeman deploying his men. Then suddenly, she saw Simon Mansion limping towards her. Her heart rose. He was home at last! She saw at once he had some injury to his left leg. It was bandaged and some

stains were showing through. 'Hullo, Jodi!' he greeted her with a twisted grin. He's in pain, Jodi thought, suddenly anxious. 'Simon!' she said reproachfully. 'You went out on a second search. Without rest, and without reporting too. You were supposed to take your share of rest! Oh Simon dear . . .' 'Couldn't stay in when I thought of that youngster,' Simon said, making a wry face. 'Damn Alec and his regimental drill! Moments matter when the lost one is very young. You ought to know, Jodi. You're a nurse. But thank you for caring about me.' 'We don't know Jacky Boy hasn't found water,' Jodi said hopefully. 'The men say there's odd waterholes through the bush. Simon, what have you done to your leg? I must look at it. I insist!' 'Take a look, pettso. So long as you're very gentle. I might yell—' Jodi bent down and began feeling the calf muscles through the bandage. She straightened up again. Her pretty face, most times so smiling and very feminine, was a little cross. 'Simon, now is not joking time,' she reminded him. 'You've spiked a ligament under the bandage, I think. It must be attended to at once. You ought to have a tetanus injection too.' Simon leaned against a twisted gum-tree and began rolling himself a cigarette. 'Seems some of Alec's "musts" and "oughts" are rubbing off on you, Jodi-bell. That man's like a catching disease. I tried to have a word with Annabelle who's keeping guard in the Office. Not a chance. She's on some two-way contact with Alec way up there in the skies.' He grinned as he lit his cigarette. 'Golly, Jodi,' he went on, 'when you come to think of it we live in a wonderful world. Conversations with astronauts on the moon, and today with mere flying farmers like Alec—' 'A wonderful world, but not an amusing one just now,' Jodi said tightly. Simon looked at her through a spiral of smoke. 'How long does a child Jacky Boy's age last out there?' he asked at length. It was Jodi's turn to take her time before she answered. 'Alec has a thing about public morale, Simon,' she laid. 'So do medicals, and the nursing profession. It is better not to answer questions that cannot give hope. People matter, as well as the fact that one person matters very much. Now I'm going to do something about your leg, Simon.'

'Not to worry, Jodi. I've been enjoying your look of concern. A proper louse, aren't I? I took myself up to Mary Roberts. She poured several gallons of antiseptic in the hole, plugged the darn thing with a piece of cast iron made of gauze rolled into a ball. Then she put that four inch hardware strap called a bandage round my leg. Satisfied?' Jodi pleaded, 'Please don't joke Simon, because—' Whatever Jodi was about to say remained unsaid. A cry had gone up from those standing around. A faint and distant sound of droning could be heard— way up in the pale hot sky. 'He's coming! He'll be here any minute!' Everyone's face was turned to the north, and tilted upwards as anxious eyes scanned the sky. 'There it is!' a young boy shouted excitedly. 'It's coming between those two puffs of cloud!' Everyone stood, chin pointed upwards, and stared. Charlie Davis was first to remember his job. 'All right! Okay okay everybody!' he commanded in his best policeman's tones. 'Everyone in straight lines east and west along the track. Single depth please, you heard me! Alan Watson! Janey! Back-up will you? Bob Thornton, you parade the south side and keep everyone fifty feet back from the gravel. Alan McDonald, you take the north side.' 'Okay, Charlie!' 'That's dead right now,' Charlie said, loud enough to be heard by all. 'Now listen some more. You're all watching that plane coming in. Now, this ain't the Governor General flying in, so no cheering or chiaking. We got a near tragedy on our hands in this town. Don't forget your manners.' Jodi could not take her eyes from the incoming plane. Silence had fallen as everyone stood—waiting, watching, hoping this man that Alec had brought with him would perform a miracle. 'Don't you worry any,' Matt whispered in her ear as he stood next to her. 'Alec could land on a dollar note if he had to. They say Tom Arnold's a wizard of a tracker—' His last words were lost in the roar of the plane as it flew in low over their heads, then winged away to the east. It circled back to make a three-point landing into the wind. The onlookers watched in their silence as the plane turned, then taxied back along the gravel road. It had been a perfect landing. The plane stopped. Behind the Perspex in the cockpit Alec Jardene could be

seen pushing his flying cap and ear phones to the side of his head. He lifted a hand to Charlie Davis, the only one to walk out on to the road. Then he turned his head and spoke to someone behind him in the plane. The door was pushed back and the two steps lowered. The townspeople still stood in absolute silence—waiting with a kind of awefilled curiosity. A figure stooped in the doorway above the steps. With a sudden sense of propriety, and of the honour one policeman felt due to another, Charlie Davis lifted his hand and gave the salute. lodi felt a lump in her throat. The profound silence of the moment stirred something deep inside her. Not a sound was heard, not a leaf fell. Nor did a lizard move. The man stepped down to the ground and accepted Charlie's salute with a return one. He was tall and strong, easy and confident. The whites of his eyes gleamed in his dark shadowy face under the broad brim of the Mounted Police hat. His uniform fitted perfectly. It was in immaculate order. He was a magnificent specimen of a man. Then, quite suddenly, he relaxed and waved to everyone standing around. Even so, for another long minute of unnatural silence no one stirred, and no one took his eyes from the newcomer. To them, at this moment in time, this man was God. He had come to find Jacky Boy. He would find Jacky Boy. Then the spell broke. Alec Jardene stepped down from his plane, pulling his peaked cap down on his forehead, almost as if to shade his eyes. He nodded to Charlie Davis. His eyes ran along the line of people as if looking for some one person in particular. 'Good on you, Alec!' someone called out, breaking the tension. 'You've brought him safely to ground! This is the chap we want! Good on you, Tom Arnold! Thanks for coming.' 'He came willingly, and I came fast,' Alec said briefly. 'No news here yet, Alec' 'I know. We kept contact with the ground.' His eyes still seemed to be searching for one face. Annabelle! Jodi wondered. Then, unexpectedly, he caught her eyes. He didn't smile and she didn't smile at him. It wasn't smiling time anyway. For anyone. From Jodi's face Alec's glance went straight to Simon Mansion, still leaning

against the spindly tree, smoking the last of his cigarette. Alec looked again from one to the other, then came across the gravel strip. 'I'm glad you're here, Jodi,' he said in his impersonal office manner. 'Stand by, will you please, till Charlie Davis and Tom Arnold call you. They may need you.' He turned to Bob Thornton. 'Get everyone back to town, will you, Bob?' he said abruptly. 'Keep an eye on the young chaps. I don't want anyone touching the plane. They may mean no harm but could start poking around from curiosity.' 'Sure, sure!' Bob said. 'Guess we'd better leave someone on guard. Just in case.' 'Thank you. I'll leave it in your hands, Bob. I must get back to the Office.' He turned as if to walk away, then stopped and looked at Simon again. 'How do, Cousin?' Simon asked, raising a mocking pair of eyebrows. 'Have a nice air-ride?' 'Very,' Alec said drily. I suppose you want a job like everyone else, Simon? Well, stay around with Jodi, will you? It depends on what Tom Arnold wants her to do. She'll be in his party—of necessity.' 'Yes, of course,' Jodi said quietly. 'I can manage on my own—if you really need Simon back at the Office.' She was thinking of Simon's bad leg but did not say so. 'I don't need him. You probably will,' Alec said bluntly. 'He knows this type of country round here. You don't. There are snags and snares you don't dream of—in any and every stretch of bush. Simon, for your information Annabelle is right now back at base putting the last things together for myself, and others, to catch up with Tom Arnold later.' He turned away, and without an answer or another word to anyone strode off along the short-cut path through the bush back to the town-site. A lonely but purposeful figure. Simon grinned at Jodi, his eyebrows wavering between high and low. 'No pleases or thank-yous about our Town Leader this early morning,' he said. 'Just orders, plain and sharp. Jodi dear, I did warn you that he would have no faith in strangers from far places—if the chips came down—didn't I? Seems he hasn't forgiven you for not being the original bush-maid from Yinda-Rarra-Gabba. He and the tracker need the nurse. The nurse needs a guide. Nice logic.' 'It seems like it,' Jodi said sadly. 'Well, I'll have to show him, won't I? I'm now about to ask the tracker what he wants me to do, when and how. What's more

I'm going to do it thoroughly, responsibly and, I hope, successfully.' Simon whistled. 'Atta girl!' he said. 'I'll hold the coats when you and Alec show a trial of strength.' 'Please don't joke! Please, please, dear Simon. This is all deadly serious, and there's work to do.' 'Of course there is, honey, and I love you for looking so calm, cool, yet humanly beautiful while you start going about it.' 'I only hope Alec thinks I'm calm and cool. The "beautiful" part would be nice too. But we haven't time—' Simon had glanced past Jodi's shoulder. 'Here comes Tom Arnold,' he said. 'And Charlie along with him. It looks as if you go where he goes, anyway.' Simon's expression changed from jokemaking to something more serious. 'Jodi? Do you think you can make it? That man could take you many miles, even days, through the bush. He'll take three or four men with him and they'll carry food and water. But no one can take the heat out of the sun, nor shore-up the twenty to thirty degree drop in temperature at night. You don't know what you're in for . . .' Jodi didn't answer because she was smiling at Charlie Davis. 'Miss Dean,' the policeman said, 'this is Sergeant Arnold of the Mounted Police.' He rolled the words off his tongue as if declaring the foundations of Australia on Captain Cook's landing day. Tom Arnold saluted then held out his hand as Jodi held out hers. For one second her slim fair hand was held in a firm grip by the strong dark hand of a State-wide famous tracker. In this hand-grip, and in the quiet businesslike certainty in his face she knew Tom Arnold would find Jacky Boy. If he could only find him alive.

'Look, we sit down this way and talk, Miss Dean,' the tracker said. He dropped to the ground, sitting on his heels, his body leaning slightly forward to keep his balance. He put his hat, brim down, on the ground beside him. Charlie Davis followed suit, giving his peaked cap place of honour next to Tom Arnold's. Two of the Tarrara men now joined them. They were all four sitting on their heels round a tiny plot of dried-out claypan under the meagre shade of Simon's trees. 'Down with you, Jodi,' Simon said, following the other four men. 'This is the wongi session, and Tom's the elder of the tribe.' Jodi sat down on the ground and wrapped her arms round her knees. 'Please go on!' she said.

Tom Arnold cleared a small table of red-brown clay in front of him. 'Okay! This big circle here I make with my hand is the town,' he said. This small circle I make over here is Tarrara Rock. The water-shed. You-all understand?' Heads nodded all round. 'Okay! This here I make out-road to Cracker Creek where we all sit-down right now? Good. Miss Dean, this little mark I put here is Medical Unit where Jacky Boy stayed for three weeks?' He looked up at her, his coal-dark eyes intelligent and enquiring: yet strangely now compassionate. "This track through the bush here is from the Unit to Tarrara Rock. Okay?' Jodi felt a cold chill creep round her heart. Tarrara Rock and the Unit! Why was the tracker connecting the two? Why was Tom Arnold looking at her, as if he wanted to spare her? She was not Jacky Boy's mother—though she too loved him, of course. Simon saw the bleak expression on Jodi's face. He took her hand and put it palm down, on his knees. He covered with his own in a comforting way. 'Tom knows you're the one person who doesn't know the bush and its ways, Jodi,' he explained. 'But he has to have you along with him because you are the nurse, Jacky Boy might need a nurse.' 'I know,' Jodi said. 'Please go on, Mr Arnold. I will put myself entirely in your hands.' Her troubled eyes looked straight across the space into the tracker's dark luminous eyes. He smiled. It was a glorious sight of white flashing teeth lighting the ebony shadow of his face. 'I have perfect faith in you, Miss Dean,' he said. 'First when I arrive, I looked at you. Then I know. You understand me, Miss Dean? That's good. Now, attention please. First we go back to the Medical Unit and pick up Jacky Boy's tracks on the ground there. Later out on the west track Mr Jardene will meet us. Okay?' They all stood up. 'But why at the Unit?' Jodi asked, puzzled. 'Jacky Boy was home when—' 'He was home only a little while, eh?' Tom asked, gently persuasive. 'But he was a lot of days round the Unit before that. Mr Jardene and I talk plenty about all that. I have a picture in my mind. Very necessary, this. Plenty of Jacky Boy's tracks will show at the Unit more clearly, you understand, Miss Dean?' 'Yes, I see,' she said, still slightly puzzled, but hiding it now. 'I won't ask any more questions. I'll accept what you say without query.' 'That's good. I asked Mr Jardene many questions on our way down. Then I ask myself—what kind of little feller is Jacky Boy? How does Jacky Boy think? You all understand?' Most of the people who had come to the out-road to watch the arrival of Alec Jardene's plane had drifted back towards the town again. Bob Thornton, Matt and a young friend of Matt's were remaining with the plane. 'We'll send a hamper back to you from the canteen,'

Jeff Casson, the postmaster, called to them. 'Alec didn't say how long he'd be. Guess it's up to Annabelle's organizing back at the Office. He's been on the air-to-ground wave-length to her for almost as many hours as I have fingers.' Fifteen minutes later Charlie Davis and his party moved off along the shortcut towards the Medical Unit. Tom had gone on ahead at a fast pace. Simon took Jodi's arm almost as if she needed guiding through the prickly parts of the undergrowth—a sort-of forewarning of what it might be like in the really rough bush. In a sense she was grateful for it. She had a terrible feeling of foreboding that the importance of the Medical Unit meant something much more than the kindly, clever Tom Arnold had said. 'I hope Carina is all right,' she began. 'She went back to relieve Annabelle.' Simon laughed. 'Carina will give Miss Annabelle some good competition. More ways than one, too. Have you noticed how innocent Carina's eyes are when she looks up at someone with that particular guileless gaze of hers?' 'No. But I can imagine it.' 'I haven't stopped noticing it, not since I first saw her. I estimated she was a capable secretary, and would be good for Alec. I'd just like to be around long enough to see how Carina wins or loses now. Actually that girl has a lot of beguilement about her—Ow! Hell's bells! Look what I've done! I've speared myself!' His left foot had come down on a half-buried splinter of granite stone. The splinter had shot up at an acute angle and struck upwards into his bandaged leg. 'Wow!' he said again, as he hopped and grimaced as if in pain. 'Oh Simon!' Jodi said, more troubled than ever, yet mustering her most sympathetic voice. 'Be patient a moment, like a dear, and sit on that log. The splinter's wedged up under the bandage, but only under a fold fortunately. Not against the flesh.' Simon sat on the log, too docile now to be true, had Jodi noticed it. She was unzipping her first-aid bag ready for use. 'Jodi? You know what I'm thinking?' Simon asked, look down at her bent head. 'No.' She was busy. Her slim fingers were now winding a clean bandage around the calf of his leg. 'Ministering angels!' he said. 'Well, one ministering angel anyway. One with shining hair, with a lovely straight parting right bang down the middle of it.' Jodi did not answer. She had a safety pin in her mouth. Simon ran a finger down the line of parting.

The knowledgeable bushman in him had heard the brushing of boots through the trees further round the curve of the path. His ear caught the timbre of a man's voice. He traced his finger once again down the parting of Jodi's hair, then leaned forward and cupped her head between his two hands. With mock tenderness he kissed her. He planted the kiss on the spot where the parting in her hair came to a meeting with her pale, smooth and altogether beautiful forehead. In the surprise, Jodi did not move. Suddenly she too heard the sound of someone coming. She heard the swish of bushes, and crackle of dead leaves as this someone from the town side of the track came through the undergrowth. Simon looked up. Over Jodi's head he grinned a welcome. 'Good day, Alec!' he said. 'You lost something? Or on your way back to put hobble and halter on that plane of yours?' Jodi closed her eyes. She thought she could have died, or cried. To be caught playing a flirtation game when Jacky Boy had yet to be found! It wasn't fair! God wasn't on her side at all—where Alec Jardene was concerned. She finished the bandaging, then stood up. She dusted down her dress, her knees, and her legs. Then in looked up. Alec's face was as cold as the moon world in shadow. 'I'm sorry, Simon,' he said. 'I have come to hurry Jodi along. Tom Arnold is asking for her. Otherwise I would not intrude, of course.'

CHAPTER TWELVE Annabelle's organization for the tracker's search party was faultless. Jodi could only stand and admire, and give honour where honour was due. Nothing had been forgotten. Each person carried a swag. There were sleeping bags, condensed and dehydrated food. For each was a small tool-pack and a powerful torch. There were additional medical supplies for Jodi's first-aid bag. Even mosquito sprays had been included along with billycans, clippers and Thermos flasks. There was an axe, a saw, and a spade for Tom Arnold's offsider. No wonder Alec was including her in Tom Arnold's search party. Carina had come to the departure point with Annabelle. 'You have to bring Jacky Boy home. And alive, Jodi,' she whispered. 'I've been stuck helping Annabelle for the last hour and a half, so I know how these people feel. They'll take strips off you, Jodi darling, if you can't mend any breaks, cure any ills, or give the right medicines to keep Jacky Boy alive. It's like this .. .' She paused. 'Like what, Carina?'

'Each family feels it could be their own child! Besides, they're mad at Dr Burns for not being here to go out with the search party—instead of you. Oh, they like you all right, Jodi. Don't get me wrong. They're relieved you're going, specially as you will have Annabelle to guide you, if necessary, so they say. Dear accomplished Annabelle! It's just nobody has any real faith in either of us—you and me—once we're loose in that beastly blanket of un-beautiful bush. They kept it quiet before, but now it's bang out in the open. They fear you won't be able to cope. I guess some of that feeling rubs off on Alec too!' 'I hope they all live to wait and see,' Jodi said, shortly. 'Including Alec'

At last the moment came to start moving. The tracker had already picked up Jacky Boy's tracks around the Medical Unit. Jodi was mystified as to why Tom Arnold had so early to believe Jacky Boy had started his wandering from the Unit. Yet he showed no hesitation or indecision. He already knew something the rest of them did not know! That was clear. Only now and again did he and Alec exchanged some views, and that was on minor things. He was now pointing outwards in the direction Jodi had taken on that early morning walk to Tarrara Rock. Why would Jacky Boy go that way? she pondered. Misgiving was nagging at her heart again. What could that desolate waste of grey amorphous rock hold to interest a little boy? Now and again, as they went along, Tom Arnold stopped and examined the ground, but most times he walked relentlessly on. In his mysterious bush-lore way he knew exactly where he was heading. And why! He looked to the left and right every few minutes. He pointed to such things as a broken twig hanging low from a wattle branch, or a leaf torn from a gum-tree. He bent down again and again to examine displaced twigs, or lately trodden-down grass. He pointed out a smudge mark where some small foot had trodden across a lizard's track. As they neared Tarrara Rock, Alec came around the group to speak to Jodi. 'Do you follow what Tom is doing?' he asked. 'Yes,' she said, nodding her head. 'I've watched every thing he has done—down to counting the number of times he's found dead ants that have been trodden on.' Alec glanced at her. This time he was the one who showed surprise. Then he actually smiled. It was like the flash of sunlight touching the edge of dark clouds, she thought. He was suddenly human. Even kind. The smile caught at her heartstrings.

No wonder Carina ... Oh well! 'Good!' he was saying. 'Maybe we'll make a bush-whacker of you yet' 'Thank you.' 'I'm glad you're pleased.' ' All the same . . . well, I do have one problem.' 'Something to do with Tom Arnold's tracking?' 'Yes.' He glanced at her again. The smile was gone and his expression was one of surprise. Jodi was watching her feet as she trod carefully over a prickly patch of long cane grass. She deliberately did not choose to look at him. 'You have doubts?' he asked, slightly incredulous. 'This tracker is probably the most famous in Australia.' 'How does he know those broken twigs, that displaced square inch of turf grass, the dead ants, and the broken cobweb between the bushes were Jacky Boy's marks?' she said slowly. Then added, 'and not mine? The smaller things yes. But the others—' She broke off. Alec was looking straight at her, his eyebrows faintly raised. His eyes were curious. 'You see,' she went on steadily, looking ahead to avoid those mesmeric eyes, 'I went out this way myself. It was such a short time ago the broken twigs, or displaced turf, even the broken cobweb between the wattles, might be my tracks, not Jacky Boy's.' There was only the sound of bush boots crashing through the thickets and over the dried grass, and between pieces of fallen mallee bark. Jodi looked up at him. 'Yes, I know,' he said quietly. Tom and I both know you came this way.' 'Tom Arnold picked up my tracks?' 'Yes, he noted the tracks, yours and many others too, while at the out-road when we first flew in. It's part of the tracker's wherewithal—to look at, and note all the tracks. Sometime, perhaps years later, he will see that track again and recognize it.'

'So from my track at the out-road he recognized my track at the Unit? Also out here?' 'Yes.' 'Alec?' Jodi said very slowly. 'Why is he so certain Jacky Boy came—of all directions—this way? Starting from the Medical Unit too?' Alec's eyes narrowed as he looked into far distances. Then they came back to Jodi's face. 'Well,' he said very quietly, 'Jacky Boy came this way because he followed you to Tarrara Rock in the morning, Jodi. The tracks told their own story. You came back from your walking. Jacky Boy did not.' Jodi missed a step and nearly stumbled, Tarrara Rock was out of bounds for children because of the water supply! Yet she had gone there for a walk herself. She thought-I led him out here into this no-man's land! She could have wrung her hands and wept. She did neither.

She kept on walking, almost blindly. She had forgotten Annabelle coming up behind them. Forgotten Carina, Simon, Mary Roberts, Tarrara—the whole world. One thought burned itself across her mind. 'Alec . . .' she said at last. 'It was me . . . I . . .' She stopped, then went on, 'you didn't even reproach me. Why? You didn't even tell me . . .' He said nothing, but he put out his arm so Jodi could take it as he helped her over a rough patch of broken ground. 'For goodness' sake, Alec,' Annabelle's voice came from behind them, 'don't tell me Jodi is flagged already? We've hardly begun.' Jodi walked on, her hand held tight in Alec's arm. Her face was frozen. She thought of one thing only. Years of training had ground it into her. She had to keep a stiff upper lip! She did not hear one word Annabelle said. Nor would have cared if she had heard. No wonder the townspeople had had doubtful faces at the best, when they first heard of her arrival. They were born and reared in this hardy bush place. Today they would have known, when Tom Arnold picked up the two sets of tracks leading out from the Unit, that he had related each set, one to the other. They didn't have to be told. This newcomer girl, Jodi Dean—this stranger in their midst - had wandered off on her own and had not even known by the rustle of leaves or the creak of a snapping twig that someone was following her!

'Alec!' Annabelle's voice was faintly remonstrating, yet it still held that clear appealing quality. 'Please don't tell me we have a near casualty already! Jodi, can I help you?' The offer acted like an electric shock to Jodi. She dropped her hand from Alec's arm as if his arm were loaded. She was here to give help, not take it. 'I'm quite all right, thank you, Annabelle,' she said firmly. 'I must have stumbled, that is all. Would you like to move up in my place? I want to go on ahead and speak to Tom Arnold, I have just thought of something.' 'Just thought of it?' Annabelle asked, her eyebrows raised. She looked at Jodi as if Jodi were suddenly a curiosity. 'Of course she must go and talk to Tom. You agree, Alec?' She changed her waterbag from one shoulder to the other. 'Come on, Alec,' she added as she purposefully took his arm. 'Go ahead, Jodi,' Alec said. 'Any information at all, no matter how slight, could be valuable.' Tom Arnold was crouched over a tiny imprint, a small curved line in the sand. 'You look at this one, Miss Dean?' he said. 'Now you look over there. Okay, that one is clear mark of Jacky Boy's sandal. This mark here is where he stopped, then turned. Come now, and I show you Jacky Boy hid behind that bush. Okay?' Jodi was wordless but she looked where Tom pointed. She followed him a little to the right. 'This bush is called Wait-a-bit,' Tom said. 'Very good name for what Jacky was doing just then. There, see this! The grass is all flat where he sat down. You know what he was waiting for, Miss Dean?' 'He was following me. Alec told me about it. Why was he watching me from behind this bush, Tom?' 'Come with me up the track a little way. I'll show you why Jacky Boy sat behind that bush. He was hiding from you.' He strode forward for some distance, not once looking at the ground nor at the bushes on either side. Then, having covered about twenty yards he bent down and began to follow marks that he could distinguish by the signs of leaves and bruised, bent grass. 'Here it is. Now, Miss Dean, look at this. Next this over here—just one pace away. Then see, three shoe marks on the ground. The toe points forward, then it points to north-east one bit. Now to the east. Now right round.' 'Is that my

shoe mark?' 'Yes. That is your track, Miss Dean. When you came you stopped and looked all around. What were you round for, Miss Dean? Do you remember?' frowned, trying to rack her brains. She shook her sadly. 'Why would I have looked round, Tom?' 'You stop and take a rest, that's why. See this print here is much deeper. And this one too. Then because the bush is strange to you, you want to look around at it some more. Okay. You stop and look around. You are maybe, sad. Well, never mind—' 'But how could you possibly know what sort of a mood I was in, Tom? No one wears their moods on the soles of their shoes.' 'Well, you didn't stamp your foot, Miss Jodi. So you were not cross. But you brushed your hand through your hair. Two or three times maybe.' He bent down and picked up something from the ground. 'Whose is this?' he asked. It was a new bobby pin, the kind Jodi wore to keep her hair in place. Involuntarily her hand flew up to the back of her head. Tom Arnold's flashing smile said he regconized her dismay. 'Yes. That's right,' he said. 'I noticed early, when we were still by the Unit, that you wore two of these pins. You see, I have to notice everything. Next I noticed you put the pins in very firm in between a little bit of your hair. So now, when I saw this pin just a minute ago I know you were worried. Or in a sad mood. You ran your fingers right through your hair, from the front to the back. Very hard. And this makes the pin fall out.' The others had caught up by this time and they gathered round Tom. They stood in a circle while he explained to them about Jodi's feelings when she went walking out to Tarrara Rock. And how Jacky Boy did not want her to see him. Perhaps he thought he'd get a scolding. So he hid behind a bush every time Jodi stopped to rest, or look around at the bush. 'Thank you, Tom, for your explanations,' Alec said. 'I'm afraid we must get on now.' 'For goodness' sake!' Annabelle exclaimed, examining the bobby pin with surprise. 'Jodi, from twelve thousand miles away—and who doesn't know a galah from a Mitchell cockatoo—actually left bobby pins at regulated intervals —just to lead us along the track so easily today. Jodi darling—thank you!' For the first time since she had met Annabelle, Jodi was uncertain of her. What was it Carina had said? Something about the sweet and kind and gentle ones being the ones who always got their own way! No. That was unkind on her own part. Annabelle was obviously trying to be amusing. That dedication to morale again? It would at least please Alec—that morale!

Time wore on as they finally climbed the granite apron of Tarrara Rock. The sky in the west was blood red. The trees stood black and still and silent— immovable against that wounding back-drop of the sunset sky. The Rock turned amethyst, then minutes later was suffused with a soft pink glow. The galahs rising from pastures away towards the farmlands came in a cloud of pink and grey, alighting on the branches of gimlet gums. They rose again, fluttering and screeching. Then fell back in noisy disarray on to their roosts. They rustled, fluttered and talked. Then they settled themselves like pale grey snow along the tree branches. And fell silent. The light suffusing the vast rock area turned a deeper colour, becoming purple, then blue. Finally dark dead grey. 'We'll make the camp fire here, Tom,' Alec said, pointing to a hollowed basin in the granite. 'You agree?' 'Yes, certainly. While we make the fire and prepare some food Mr Hancock will go to the top of the big bulge to the east, and make a beacon. If Jacky Boy sees the light, maybe he will come to us. Who knows?' 'A series of beacons I think, Tom,' Alec said. 'We'll also take our lights out and range them as far over the area as possible.' Alec turned. 'Annabelle, I'll leave you in charge, here at the camp' he said. 'We'll eat when we get back. Tom, would you come with me a moment while we sketch a plan, as from here.' Annabelle cupped a tiny pile of dried gum leaves and short grass ends between two rocks. 'Lighting a fire is quite an art in the bushlands, Jodi,' she said. 'One has to make smoke first, then blow on it. and watch for the spark to leap. Then add dry leaves. Finally we need coals, not flames. Flames are dangerous if there is a sudden spurt of wind. Coals are safer, and hotter anyway.' 'I'm all attention, Annabelle,' Jodi said eagerly. 'Next we hedge the coal heap with sand. In a minute I'll find a mallee root to top it off. You'll see the best coal fire you've ever dreamed of—thanks to the mallee root.' The darkness had come down and the sky was suddenly prinked with stars. The billy had boiled and been set aside on one of the hot stones. Jodi had set the food around, each share in its small foil box. From a higher rock on the far side she could see the shafts of lights from the battery lamps the men carried. Far up on the top height Jim Hancock's beacon set up a leaping path of light against the sky.

If only Jacky Boy would see them! And go to one or other of them! 'Have you ever lost anyone, Annabelle?' Jodi asked out of long silence that had fallen between them. 'Oh, temporarily,' Annabelle replied, her voice still carrying that unruffled bell-like quality. 'Not in the bush, course. But if one is patient, one can find again.' She added, ' "Finding's keeping" will be my catchcall from now on.' She laughed as if the business of losing, finding, then keeping was only a wry joke, no more. "What about you, Jodi?' she asked. I don't suppose England is a likely place for people to lose one another, unless it was in a crowd, of-course?' 'I did lose someone. When I was about Jacky Boy's age. Funny—but you don't ever really forget, do you? Even a child always remembers.' From above came the sound of clambering boots, slip-and sliding down the rock face. Both girls sat up, listening. Alec came round a buttress of high rock into the glow of the coal fire. The shadows played with light and dark across his long lean body and his face, stern now, and reticent. 'Hullo Alec,' Annabelle said cheerily. 'We've a meal ready for you. I've shown Jodi how not to make smoky billy tea. A twig of gum leaves floating on top is the secret.' He dropped down on to the rock beside Annabelle. 'No sign of . . . well, of anything?' Jodi asked. 'No. No sign. Yes thank you Annabelle, I'll have a mug of tea. Have you two girls eaten yet?' 'We don't exactly feel hungry . . .' Jodi began. 'Then eat whether you have an appetite or not. It's important to store energy.' 'Then I'll eat by all means,' Jodi agreed. She helped herself to a slice of lamb, and a sandwich from her own pack. 'Guess what, Alec?' Annabelle said in between munches of quartered tomato and cheese sandwich. 'To keep our spirits up, and take our minds off troubles, Jodi and I have been swapping love stories.' That would have made interesting telling,' Alec said sardonically. He turned away and helped himself to a sandwich. 'You'd never guess that Simon was not Jodi's first love after all. Now would you? She began aged three and a half. Did you ever guess that some people can begin their love life at that age? Have an affair, and never forget it!' 'Yes, I did know about Jodi's "affair"—as you call it,' Alec said unexpectedly.

'Simon told me. Quite some time ago!' 'Simon told you?' Annabelle was surprised. 'Why on earth were you two having a run-through on Jodi's private life? Simon wasn't asking for your blessing, I hope. After all, he's your agent, as well as a cousin, but not your younger brother, or something.' 'No.' Alec judiciously stirred his tea. 'I have no doubt Simon warned Jodi about my ogre qualities. I was entitled to know something about the background of the other party to the contract. How she came to come out to Australia, for instance. Normal procedure in any appointment, I assure you.' He did not add that it was only later he had learned it was Jodi's brother Simon was seeking. And that Simon had asked his advice about Goldfields connections. Annabelle threw back her head and laughed. The firelight played a golden dance on her throat and face. It reflected sparkling lights in her eyes. She's very pretty, Jodi thought. She refused to be either sad or angry at Simon's near breach of confidence. Just now a little boy out there alone in the night was so much more important. 'Why aren't you saying anything, Jodi?' Annabelle demanded. 'It's you we are talking about.' 'I agree with Alec,' Jodi replied, trying to sound as if the whole matter was trivial. 'It's the done thing to enquire about an applicant's background. When I applied for admittance to training in a teaching hospital in London they all but went through my life from the moment of birth. The work is personal and confidential, so I suppose it is necessary to know exactly what sort of person one is taking on.' 'You mean that Alec—or a hospital—needs to know everything?' Annabelle sounded incredulous. 'Well, nearly everything,' Jodi conceded. 'I don't suppose it mattered what was the colour of my eyes, or if I wore a parting in my hair.' 'Not even if you were in the habit of dropping an occasional bobby pin?' Alec asked. For one dreadful moment Jodi was hotly angry. Then she caught Alec's eyes, and saw that their expression was one more of teasing than anything unkind. 'At least the dropping of that particular pin,' she said evenly, 'might make local history. That is, if Tom Arnold finds Jacky Boy.' Alec pulled in his long legs and stood up. For a brief moment Jodi felt very sad—not only because of Jacky Boy, but because of some other intangible thing in the air around them: a longing for some nameless thing inside herself. And a wish that she could have been alone with Alec. Even if only for a little while. There was so much she could explain.

'Orders please, Alec?' Annabelle demanded, brisk and businesslike. 'We are rested and refreshed. What next?' She jumped up and linked her arm in Alec's. Together they stood there, haloed by the firelight, their backs to Jodi. 'We are still a small party, and still a manageable one,' she went on brightly. 'Someone must go out and take the food pack for Tom. Then send Jim Hancock on to man Tom's next beacon. Someone needs to stay here.' 'Exactly. You, Annabelle, will please—' 'Don't tell me,' she interrupted. 'I know. I'm the one to go find Jim. Not much trouble in that, Alec. Jim will have Tom's bright fires to guide him back—' Alec was looking down at Annabelle now. 'You are right again,' he said. 'I've half a mind to stop thinking. You'll do it for me.' Poor Carina—Jodi thought. Then wondered why she was sadder still. Carina had sworn to be in love with one officer or another on the ship out from England. She ought to have grown herself a crackless heart by this time. 'What do you want me to do, Alec?' she asked, pulling herself together. 'I'm afraid you and I stay here, unless one or other of the three out on the rock send for us. We must have a base in case Jacky Boy is brought in. And this is it.' 'Could I go with Annabelle? I'd be most willing—' 'No. You would never manage the footwork crossing the bad patches. The rock shelves sharply into gullies. There's debris, rotting leaves and rush tussocks that grow in those places. It needs an experienced person to negotiate them.' 'And I am not that,' Jodi agreed soberly. 'But I could use my lamp to follow Annabelle—' 'No!' Alec said again, sharply. 'It's out of the question.' He brushed his fingers through his hair. 'It is more than likely that you'll be needed here. Annabelle will go. She's experienced, and confident.' Jodi jumped up and began packing away the uneaten food: then tidying up the camp area. At least domestic chores are something that will satisfy him about experience, she thought. It's a good job I'm competent at something—other than nursing. Sometimes I feel I could SCRAG him! Jodi awoke next morning to hear voices coming through loud and clear on the two-way. It was light: a few minutes before sunrise. 'Okay, Alec' A voice was coming in magically as if its owner were only twenty yards away. 'Everything's going down on the tape for the record here at Tarrara.

Meantime, Dr Burns reckons he can get here to Tarrara tonight or worst in the morning. He's getting a young doctor up from Perth to keep a watch on his patients at Cracker reek. The two babies he was waiting for have arrived, and urgent appendix operation is over. Now about Mrs Paterson. Mary Roberts reported she's been pretty sick, worry mostly. Nothing more serious than that. Over.' Tell Mrs Paterson the party is in good shape and will make good distance today. Tell her Tom Arnold is optimistic. He's found comparatively fresh tracks at daybreak this morning. Over.' 'Good. Next point. Young Mart's revving up to join you. Any chance? Over.' 'Surprise for you, Charlie! Tell him to get cracking out here straight away. Tell him I'll leave the usual Scout direction-marks for him after we wrap up this base. Give Matt these next words. We need another man out here. That will set him up. Check with him the usual camp emergency gear and provisions, will you? He'll know what I mean. Can you get a relief watch out at my plane for me? Will be most grateful. Over.' 'Message received re Matt. A relief has already gone out to your plane. The Frame family—dad, mum and the kids are all out there. They've camping gear and tucker. The whole town's alert to do anything at all to help. Over.' 'Many thanks to the Frames. And to the town. Over and out now.' There was unexpectedly a softer note in Alec's voice as he said this last. Jodi stood, her half-rolled sleeping bag draped between her hands, lost in thought. Alec slipped the antennae back into the kit and glanced across the fire coals. 'What are you thinking about, Jodi?' he asked. Almost as if he really wanted to know. A certain sadness touched her face. She shook her head. 'I guess I was playing truant,' she said, deliberately trying to sound cheerful. 'I guess I was—for a tiny moment— absent.' She didn't add that that had been because of the sound in his voice, and the kinder heart that had echoed in it. The discovery of a new and different Alec. They looked at each other for a long minute. Then he came over to her, took the sleeping bag from her hands and rolled it up professionally. He tied it with straps. 'We must get moving soon,' he said. 'Both of us. Together.' Jodi's heart stopped thumping so painfully. It lay down and was quiet, and warm. And happy too—until she remembered Jacky Boy. 'Any news?' she asked. 'From Tom? Yes. They're ready to make a move as soon as the sun's well up. They've found two of Jacky Boy's tracks. Not a day old. As for news from

Tarrara? All is well there, including Simon Mansion. The only personal message was from Simon to you, Jodi.' 'To me? Is his leg all right? Oh, I do hope—' "The message was through Charlie Davis and I'm afraid Charlie did not even mention Simon's leg,' Alec said drily. 'However, he did say all was well at Tarrara. That could cover Simon's injuries I imagine?' 'Yes—of course—' The moment was spoilt. They were back to as before. He bent down and moved the boiling billy to the flat stone beside the fire. 'The message relayed for you went more or less as follows,' he said, poking the coals of the fire, and not looking at her. 'A light plane dropped the newspapers and mail on Tarrara late yesterday afternoon. Simon's message was that you, Jodi, were to be of good cheer. As a result of correspondence he has received he felt reasonably confident that—quote—"optimistic steps were being taken to trace the relative about whom you are concerned." Unquote. Have I made the message clear enough?' "Thank you, Alec. It's perfectly clear.' 'Two lost persons in your life, Jodi?' 'Yes, two. Sometimes I think there is a third.' He looked at her, his eyebrows just on the hover. His smile amused. 'You?' he asked. 'Yes, me. The inside me—' 'I hope both of you are in good health this morning and ready to go any minute?' They both laughed. Once again the dark colours had gone, and the brighter colours had come back into Jodi's world. She was happy and busy again. The sun came up out of the east. Hope, like the new day, was born again,

CHAPTER THIRTEEN The grey veil lifted over the land as Jodi and Alec ate their breakfast. There was no time for conversation now. They had to be up and be on their way. The flocks of galahs, swathes of pink and grey, came screaming across the sky to alight in curiosity on the boughs of the half-dead trees that stood in the shallow gorge to the east. The rock land was no longer so eerie. Its great grey lumpiness extended as far as Jodi could see from the camp-base. The granite throw-ups rose and swelled in waves and curves: and here and

there it broke in sharp ridges which dropped into deep inclines. Down in these rifts were the dark shadows of the silent gullies of which the others had warned her. 'Shall I stamp out the coals, Alec?' Jodi asked when they were packed and ready to move on. 'No, I'll do that. My bush boots are thicker than your shoes. Meantime here's the rope. We may need it. Yours is the green end. Mine the red. Remember that—in case we need to tie up to each other in a steep decline. While you practise your reef knots I'll make the next call to Tom Arnold.' An hour later Alec and Jodi were passed by Jim Hancock as he made his way back to the base. Another hour later Boy Scout Matt—complete with gear— caught up with them, and only a few minutes later all three were lowering themselves down one ridge side, then girding themselves to scramble up the opposite side. 'You watch for the tracker's lead marks, Matt,' Alec said. 'That's your job at this stage. I'll keep my eyes on the terrain. Jodi will keep her eyes partly on my shadow, partly on her own feet.' Sometimes they clambered over smooth-looking curved canopies of rock. Each one a solid mass, grey-streaked and pock-marked. They descended into upturned bowl of the same raddled timeless grey granite. Then up again and over the lip of overhanging rock waves. Single file, they followed the track marks and pointers left by Tom Arnold. Here and there they had to wind their way in and out of great heaps of disintegrated rocks and slabs of nightmare forms of outsize slate. Sometime after midday Alec called a ten-minute stop for drinks and snacks. He took out his two-way, but he could no longer contact Tom Arnold. 'Guess he's moved down in a deep gully,' Matt said in his best Scout-informed manner. 'There's a block in the airwave.' 'Quite.' Alec glanced at Jodi. 'Are you all right, Jodi?' he asked. 'Yes. I was thinking..' 'Thinking? Now is the time for action, surely?' 'I was thinking of a very small boy crossing this rock mass—alone. It would have been terrifying, and could have shock effects. I hope Dr Burns will get to Tarrara as soon as possible.' 'Shock effects?' Matt asked, puzzled. 'This rock's the same kind of rock as it is down near Tarrara, isn't it, Alec?' 'Yes!' 'Well, the Patersons come out for picnics to the edge near Tarrara. On Sundays mostly. Jacky Boy would have seen the rocks, from there, lots of

times. He wouldn't have been frightened then, would he?' 'What do you say, Jodi?' Alec asked. "The children of Tarrara are used to living near the rock.' 'That makes all the difference,' she agreed with some relief. 'You were all born here so you live with this—this barren monstrosity.' 'Cheer up, Jodi!' Matt said. 'We don't mind you weren't born here, do we, Alec? Most people who live in the country know it best, I guess—' He broke off, and bent down, peering at the ground. 'Golly, look at this, Alec!' he yelled. 'The arrow has three strokes through it. Three! Tom's found Jacky Boy's track near here. Jacky Boy was fine and dandy, when he was this far!' Jodi's eyes met Alec's. For a long moment they stood, a single thought in both their minds. Jacky Boy was alive. Somewhere near.

The sun rose higher and higher. Then was westering. It was brilliant and hot and sovereign. The harsh indifference of the vast rock became all colours— red, blue, purple— here and there washed with gold. Matt went leaping on ahead. Jodi never afterwards remembered how she climbed down into Big Gully.

It was deep. Here, some aeon ago in primeval times, the rock crust of the earth had sunk down forty feet or more. Through a crack at the depths some time-forgotten subterranean watercourse had burst upwards and found its way to the surface. The creek then flowed on, reflecting the bright colours of the walls on either side. It made its way to a man-made reservoir through clefts and chasms along the distant dip of Tarrara Rock. They found Jacky Boy lying curled in a nest of ferns by the side of the creek. Tom Arnold and Annabelle had arrived only a short time before Alec's party came clambering from foothold to foothold down the cliff's sides. Tom had not allowed Annabelle to touch Jacky Boy other than to straighten his small limp figure, then wrap a blanket round him. He himself had bathed the dirt marks and tear stains from the pale, stained face of the little boy. 'Now then, Miss Stacy,' Tom said as the others came up, 'you just step aside for this young lady, Miss Dean. It's not right to touch him till a doctor comes, but she's—' 'Jodi is not a doctor!' Annabelle interrupted indignantly. 'Up north, Miss Stacy,' Tom explained gently, 'more'n not we have to do with

next best. Seems to me Miss Dean is next best. A good next best, I think.' Jodi forgot Annabelle, and forgot to defer to her as a 'personage'. Gently but firmly she motioned the indignant girl to the side. Annabelle looked at Alec, wide-eyed and angry. He shook his head, 'Not now, Annabelle,' he cautioned. 'She is the only trained person amongst us.' Jodi was on her knees beside Jacky Boy. She lifted one eyelid. The eyeball quivered. 'Light a fire please,' she said, not looking up. 'Heat as much water as possible.' She slipped a hand under the blanket and straightened the child's legs. Then she held his wrist between the thumb and fingers of her right hand. 'His pulse is not very strong, but it's regular,' she said, tucking his tiny hand back under the blanket. Leaf and leaf-twigs were already crackling between stones. Matt had sprung to action. He first lit-up, then began to unstrap the billies from the packs lying around. He filled these at the water's edge. After a few minutes Jodi lifted the blanket again and put her head, ear downwards, on the child's chest. 'Yes,' she repeated. 'Not strong but regular.' 'What does that mean?' Annabelle asked. Her voice, generally so peculiarly clear, now held an edge of nerviness in it. Jodi's trained ear caught it. Hysteria? 'He's been drinking, because his skin is soft and moist,' Jodi said aloud. 'The front of his shirt is wet too.' 'He couldn't have eaten anything!' Annabelle insisted, as if this was Jodi's fault. Or at least Jodi's omission to mention this fact. 'It wouldn't matter if he hadn't eaten for a week,' Jodi said calmly. 'Except to give him energy. We can do without food much longer than we can do without water.' 'Listen—all of you!' Annabelle said. An imperious note crept into her voice. 'We must do something about this child now! He's not conscious. He could die while we're standing around here, and while Jodi wastes time feeling his pulse.' 'It'll be all right, Annabelle,' Alec said, a sudden firmness in his voice. Jodi turned her head to see how the fire-making and water-boiling was going on. Alec had taken Annabelle by the wrist. He slipped his free arm along her

shoulders and drew her towards him, and held her there. Jodi saw all this yet did not register it for the moment. She had other urgent work to do. 'Matt,' she said quietly, 'if you half-fill all the billies we'll get a quantity of hot water quicker. As I use the water, refill please, and put back on the coals again.' 'Golly, I don't know why I didn't think of that first,' Matt said regretfully as he poured off some of the water in the billies. Only Tom Arnold the tracker smiled. Everyone else was too busy at that moment—Matt with his billies, Alec with his arm round Annabelle and leading her a few yards away from Jodi's implacable back. It was Annabelle—the girl who knew the bush—who was on the point of losing her cool! Jodi was too busy, and too concerned for the small child in her care, to pay attention to that—yet. Tom knelt down on the far side of Jacky Boy. 'You tell me what to do, Miss Dean,' he said. 'That is, if necessary. I'll do it quicker than you guess—what with these hands of mine being big and black, they're strong as a mallee root.' Jodi looked up. They smiled at each other. 'I'll tell you when, Tom,' she said. 'Thank you in advance.' It was her voice that was soft and clear, this time. Also gentle. And confident. Half an hour passed while Jodi ministered to the child. 'Can you spare me, Jodi?' Alec asked. 'I can't get a wavelength down here to send information back to Tarrara. I'll have to go up the gorge-side, and try from the top. Charlie Davis needs to know our whereabouts, and that we've found Jacky Boy. That's his right as district police officer. He'll be able to give Dr Burns a call.' 'Yes. Of course you must go.' 'Are you in need of anything that could be sent out?' 'No. I have all that I could use here, thank you. Dr Burns knows the contents of the emergency medical kit, so he will know what I am doing.' 'Right. Then I'm off!' A minute later Alec's boots could be heard thrashing through the undergrowth, then clambering up the rock face. Annabelle came over to where Jodi was sitting on a flat rock beside Jacky Boy. 'How do you know he isn't ill? Or even dying?' she demanded querulously. 'You haven't lifted his head, Jodi. He could have concussion.' 'I have felt his head with the tips of my fingers,' Jodi replied. Patience came

easily to her now. 'I slid my hands under his head to do that without disturbing him too much. The pupils of his eyes—when I lift the lids—are perfectly normal now.' 'What about internal haemorrhage?' Annabelle demanded. She thrust her hand through her hair in an agitated way. I suppose you learned all that from a book. Jacky Boy is different. Don't you understand, Jodi? This minute he belongs to everyone in Tarrara. Not to you. You are a stranger. If anything goes wrong, every living soul in the district will—' 'Miss Stacy,' Tom Arnold interrupted quietly, I guess we all know how you feel. Right now this nurse here has to do what she thinks is right, because that's the way she learned it. She's the only one who does know what to do. because it's her job.' 'I have a claim on Jacky Boy, and a responsibility to the town,' Annabelle went on, hotly. 'I'm very anxious, Jodi. I belong there. You don't. Please move away, and let me see for myself—' Annabelle's voice was no longer bell-like, or attractive either. 'Tom,' Jodi said evenly, 'there's a bottle in the top left-hand pocket under the lid of the kit. It contains some white tablets. It's marked S.R. but has its usual pharmaceutical name printed under it. You'll recognize it, I'm sure.' 'Yes, certainly.' Tom moved across to the bag where it stood on a flat rock. He held the pills up for Jodi to see. She nodded. "You know what they are, Tom? Please give Annabelle two. She needs them.' 'I don't take tablets—' Annabelle began. 'Not even aspirin when you have a headache, Miss Stacy?' Tom asked cheerfully. He made a gesture of throwing two tablets in his mouth, then swallowing them. 'Here, Matt,' he went on, 'fetch me that mug of water, will you? That'll make them go down properly.' Jodi knew Tom had only feigned taking the tablets. She had rendered up a tiny prayer to heaven that he would understand what she had meant, and that he would pretend in just exactly this way. It was Annabelle who needed the sedation. Not Tom, nor even herself. 'Oh well!' Annabelle conceded. 'Since you're all going to take aspirin I'll change my mind. Actually I do have a splitting headache.' 'Golly, Annabelle!' Matt said, gazing at her with admiration as she threw back her head and swallowed the tablets. 'You must have the best teeth in the world. When you opened your mouth I could see them all. Don't you even have one filling?' Even Annabelle smiled at the boy's flattering interest. Jodi's eyes met Tom's eyes over the inert but slowly warming stirring body of their small patient.

That boy has genius, Jodi thought of Matt. What diplomacy! She leaned over Jacky Boy and gently placed her cheek against his. For one moment she was no longer the professional nurse being professional. 'Jacky Boy, darling,' she whispered. 'We love Matt, don't we? He says the loveliest things at the right moment.' The touch of Jacky Boy's satin-smooth cheek against her own brought a lump to her throat. So young! And now so saved! 'Jacky! Jacky!' she said gently, hugging him. 'His name's not "Jacky",' Matt said indignantly. 'It's "Jacky Boy".' 'Yes. I've always been going to ask why?' Jodi said, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. 'His real name's Jacky Boy,' Matt insisted. 'The whole of it. His father's name is Jacky. Mr Paterson's gone up north to Mount Tom Price so he can earn the big money to build a new home. When this one was born Mrs Paterson said he was Jacky's boy—by the look of him. He took after his father. When Mr Paterson saw him the first time he said—"Too right, he's Jacky's boy! By golly that's what we're going to call him too!" Everybody knows his name is Jacky Boy.' Jodi rocked as she cradled the child, and laughed till the tears almost came back to her eyes again. Jacky Boy opened his eyes, and very nearly smiled too!

CHAPTER FOURTEEN It was several days before Tarrara town settled down again to normal business. It had taken only one day for everyone to hear all the facts of Jacky Boy's escapade. They all now knew he had followed Jodi on her early morning walk to Tarrara Rock. 'She shouldn't have gone out there because no one's supposed to go on to the Rock because of the reservoir. Water contamination, you know,' Mrs Casson said. 'Her being a trained nurse, and all that, she ought to have known someone, or something, was following her,' another said. 'Anyway I heard she didn't really go right up to the Rock that day.' Mrs Davis pointed out that as Jodi had only recently come from another country she wouldn't have had time to learn what everyone else, born in the

bush, always knew. Bush people have an instinct that tells them when anyone or anything is nearabouts. The crack of a twig, the scuttle of small ground birds, the sudden flight of cockatoos as if frightened. Even a lizard suddenly dashing into an old log. 'What's more,' Mrs Thornton added, 'if you looked about you and saw a shadow that was a wrong shadow—you know, not the proper shape for a tree or a shrubs-well, it could tell a whole load of things. Then there's the brushing sound of leaves or grass moving when there's no wind. Any of us born here would know. All the same she was very game to go right out on the Rock to look after Jacky Boy. It's a proper nightmare—that Rock. I wouldn't be game to go—not over the top of it!' The consensus of opinion was that they'd let Jodi off unkind criticism, specially as bit by bit news seeped through to how she had looked after and cared for Jacky Boy hen he was found. 'She even cried when he opened his eyes and smiled at her,' Mrs Thornton said. 'So Matt says,' Mrs Davis agreed. 'You weren't there to see. From all accounts I heard Annabelle had all but fainted... She's so wonderfully kind, and softhearted, generally. It must have nearly killed her to see Jacky Boy lying there. What a pity,' she went on, 'that Tom Arnold—God bless him—had to fly back north the same day. There wasn't even time for anyone to thank him. He just went.' 'Yes,' agreed one of the older women. 'But wasn't it wonderful the way that station-owner up north sent his own private helicopter down to get him?' 'Right well deserved!' stated Mrs Davis judicially. 'The police—like my husband—do deserve some consideration!'

After a few days Jodi began to find herself greeted with smiles and handshakes again. Tarrara had suddenly turned into a heavenly place. The sun's summer heat began to give way to cooler weather as the season changed. The days were warm, the nights were cold but still bright with starlight. Over the treetops and even through the bush the filmy clouds of smoke could be seen rising above the distant farmlands as the burn-off season began. The nearer paddocks, backing on to the town, gave out the heavenly scent of burning stubble and smouldering gum leaves. A sprinkling of early winter wild flowers broke their covers in distant parts of the bushland. Towards evening the declining sun shot shafts of light into the new leaves forming in the crowns of the gum-trees. These trees now shone red and gold, like fire, in their tops. The flocks of galahs swept home to their roosting trees in their pink and grey feathered clouds at a much earlier hour each evening.

In this changing season, the bushland stood very still. Each tree was a waiting sentinel, tall and slim against the red stain of sunset: watchful. Always watching. Jodi noticed the harshness had gone now from the heat-razed landscape. Yet the sense of a phantom-like waitingness was still there. 'I wish I knew—' she said one evening when she was walking up to the canteen with Carina, 'I wish I knew what it is waiting for.' 'What what is waiting for?' Carina was thinking of how she seemed to be making little impact on Alec's affections. She was only half interested in Jodi's question. 'The bush,' Jodi said. 'Don't you feel it's always waiting? Watching too! And that maybe it's been waiting for centuries. Whole milleniums—' 'I don't even know how long a millenium is,' Carina said tartly. 'As for thinking the bush is waiting for anything but a bush-fire to come and burn it down—well, I just wouldn't know. What I do know is this, Jodi. You're getting nutty about this place. You'd better be careful because you'll have to go home to England someday.' 'Yes, I know. I can understand about loving two places. But how to live in both at the same time?' 'It's a bit difficult when they happen to be more than eleven thousand miles apart,' Carina agreed. 'As for me, since Annabelle is clearly beating me all along the line to my darling blood-stirring Alec Jardene—I don't care if I take my next job as a typist in the purser's office of some big homeward bound liner. Even if there aren't as many eligible men shipping themselves over the seas as women, at least there are enough to take notice of me.' Jodi laughed. 'Everyone says that when the seeding is over, most of the farmers come to town for a break,' she said. 'And lots of them are single too. Likewise very well off. You'd better stay around, Carina.' 'That business about the farmers—specially the young ones haloed with acres, is just a bait. It was offered by someone remarkably like you, Jodi, when we arrived in this benighted place. What is this place anyway? Less than half the real houses had walls left standing by those beastly floods. No telephones! Only two-ways. What a way to have to communicate!' 'They're putting telephone cables through almost at once,' Jodi said hopefully. 'Mary Roberts is to have one in her own house so she can take her turn on night-call for the Unit. Me? I'm to have day duty for a month. That's till someone gets so sick they become bed cases.' 'Well, they'd better not,' Carina advised. 'It's no good my being your best

friend if I don't use charm to influence others on your behalf. I have already told darling unattainable icy Alec that really and fundamentally you are a delicate person, Jodi. You'd come out here to Australia for your health's sake. So you mustn't be exploited—' 'Carina! Why on earth did you say that? It's not true!' 'So what? What does truth matter when self-interest is at stake? I mean your self-interest of course, Jodi. Simon, in spite of having had to go back to the city the day after Jacky Boy's return, just to get on with running the Stock and Station business, is clearly nuts about you. Even Alec notices that! Every bus brings a letter for you. Every time I hear that buzzing bell in the Office, and I try to understand a single word on that so-and-so radio telephone. I'm certain it's Simon wanting to know if you're about. How do you manage that darn radio telephone, anyway?' 'You wait till the other person has finished speaking,' Jodi advised. 'And you put your hand over the mouthpiece while the other is speaking. Any sound even breathing, breaks the sound wave. When the other person has finished you start speaking. Then he puts his hand over the mouthpiece while he listens. Got it?' 'In short,' Carina interrupted testily, 'you communicate in prepared speeches. Well, you can have that, Jodi darling, as a way of life. It's me for the ocean wave if some charming gent doesn't turn up soon. And willing. Preferably one with a known willingness to barter wedding rings.' They were nearing the canteen and Jodi felt time was short for this particular topic. 'If I can interrupt for one minute, Carina,' she said earnestly, 'I just want to let you know that when Simon and I communicate—be it by letter, plane or radio-telephone—we are not making love.' 'I'm not the only one who thinks things about you and Simon,' Carina said crisply. 'I know Alec thinks things too—' 'Alec thinks so?' Jodi asked indignantly. 'What have you been saying to him, Carina?' 'Nothing. Except that it's a costly business for the administration—if Simon reverses the call charges—when one lover is here in Tarrara and the other wayoff miles and miles southwards. I didn't mention any names of course. You do see, Jodi darling, it was my duty to draw attention to office costs?' Jodi was silent. The last gold edge-rim of the sun went down behind the sentinel trees, leaving a sky stained in burning crimsons. Jodi thought that perhaps it had gone with a sigh. Something else right inside her was also about to topple over the edge of the world. Also with a sigh. Useless to feel this way, she thought.

Sometimes in the few weeks since Jacky Boy had been lost then found she had caught herself walking as far distant from the Office as possible—so she wouldn't see Alec. Not even his back, nor his shadow thrown across the blind at night when he often worked back late. Maybe she was afraid that she might see two shadows there. Alec's strong almost hawk-like profile. The other, the silhouette of a well-dressed head of hair above a wide forehead, a short nose and a strong chin—all belonging unmistakably to Annabelle. Annabelle was the girl to whom he had once been engaged! That gave her a special role—one of prime importance—in the present management of Tarrara. It was what most people called an 'interesting situation'! Annabelle was of Alec's own country and of his own land-owning kind, of course! He would probably regard her—Jodi—as a foreigner forever and ever! Poor Carina! Poor, silly me! Jodi thought sadly. We were both born on the 'up-side' of the world, instead of 'down under' here! She wondered if that old engagement had been broken off because of some slight misunderstanding, and now it had all been explained away. Funny, her thoughts had run on, but I can't imagine Alec coming to terms with anything or anyone— if it touched his self-confidence, or knocked his reserve. Yet sometimes, she had noticed, there was a quickly come, quickly gone light in the depths of his eyes. Almost as if everything else was a facade. Or a shield? Sometimes as Jodi had taken the long way home for her two-hour midday break she would see Annabelle's car parked outside the Office. That was the sign that Annabelle would be in for dinner that night. She would be sitting on Alec's right hand at the top end of the 'person-ages' table. Worse, Carina would be making half funny, half knife-edged remarks at Annabelle's expense—all the way from the soup to the coffee. Poor Carina! Jodi thought on those occasions. She was genuinely sorry for her room-mate's lovelorn condition. Then Jodi would think about Simon. She wished he could personally bring his news of old Goldfields records instead of writing so many letters about them. They could talk over all that he discovered. 'Poor, poor Carina!' she said aloud, on this sunset evening as they crossed to the canteen. 'Who— me?' Carina demanded, almost wrathfully. 'Why me? Why am I poor? I suppose you are not!' 'I was thinking,' Jodi said apologetically, 'that Annabelle looks likely to be the

winner in the Royalty Stakes. A comeback for the favourite. While I do have a friend in Simon—that is true. But you—' 'Could make a pretty enough wallflower? You wait, Jodi pet. Pitying me, indeed! I hope Simon comes up here again soon, I'll give him my version of the glad eye—just to watch you be the one to start worrying.' 'If Simon comes up here it is to give me news of someone he is tracing for me,' Jodi insisted flatly. 'Please do believe me.' 'What? Another mystery?' Carina scoffed. 'Jodi darling, you're not the veiled woman or the Mona Lisa. Are you thinking of using either of those techniques? All for Simon? What a drongo you can be! Simon will fall for the asking. I know that type. Why trouble about techniques when plain homegrown encouragement will do? I could even work that one on Simon myself. A ripe plum, if ever I saw one! Hmm, something to think about—now I do come to think about it!' They paused in the canteen doorway to let an older woman pass them. 'Carina, get it into that muddled mess inside your head,' Jodi whispered fiercely. 'I'm not interested in falling plums. I just want to be me. And the only so-called mystery in my life is a relative who came to Australia so long ago I hardly remember him. I only remember he was with me —when I was little. And that he had his own special way of saying my name. It made me laugh and laugh, yet I can't remember what it was!' She broke off, then added wistfully, 'Isn't it strange I don't remember that?' 'It's now-time I'm worrying about,' Carina said with a shrug. 'The past-time's over and done with anyway.' They were inside the canteen now and they walked the length of the room to their places at the table. At the top end Alec's chair was empty. Somehow dinner was never quite so interesting when Alec was absent. Jodi knew instinctively that everyone felt that! The nights had a sharp bracing coolness about them as the summer season came to an end. In Tarrara the months of town-planning were beginning to produce something concrete. The post office was nearly finished. The school was already finished, and the Parents and Citizens Association were holding week-end working-bees to make a garden around the school. Everywhere foundations for new houses were appearing like mushrooms popping up in orderly squares on the ground. New roads were under construction. Stacks of bricks, tiles, new-sawn timber, and asbestos sheets began to replace the old heaps of fallen-down houses. Alec was always busy. Night and day.

'That is—' Carina amended, 'except when he disappears in that plane of his for two or three days at a time. Gone to the city! He has to talk townreconstruction with the government officials, or something.' 'I suppose he knows what he's doing,' Jodi answered casually. 'Well . . .' Carina said judicially. 'When it comes to his own private affairs I suppose he's entitled to keep them to himself. He was officially "out" half of last week. This time out on his farm. Somewhere love-nesting with Annabelle, I suppose. Where do you suppose he was for two days early this week?' 'I haven't a clue.' Jodi was trying hard not to want to know the answer. She had missed him herself. She had found herself watching for the sight of that rangy figure—with its air of remoteness, yet purposefulness—stepping over new house foundations or holding thoughtful conference with town-planners, architects and builders, along by some new building site. 'I'll let you into a secret, Jodi darling,' Carina said one day as they were making up their faces before dinner. 'Annabelle's a darn bad typist no matter how good she is at organizing everyone else. I have to re-type everything Alec brings in that she's been doing for him at week-ends. I sometimes wonder if she's asleep half the time. Say, Jodi! Have you ever thought about where Annabelle does sleep when she goes off jaunting with Alec? What with the permissive society, and all that—' Jodi found herself positively blushing. Feeling bruised too. 'Shame on you, Carina!' was all she could find to say.

Jodi was mainly occupied treating colds, mild doses of 'flu and a few cuts these last days before the coming of winter. The town was wonderfully free from serious accidents. Every week the bus took out the mail including her weekly letter to her parents. Every two or three days the bus-mail brought her a letter from Simon. He reported 'he was having a wonderful time sleuthing back-records of people who had ever lived in the Goldfields. The key clue was—of course —a mining couple who had returned from England with a male child who, by his age, could not have been born to them during their short travels overseas. One letter ran— 'It's just a case of looking up hundreds of files, but I've some of my pals up there working on it for me. Actually Alec has the best connections out there along the Golden Mile. He, and his family before him, have always held mining investments in that area. He's contacted one or two of the big mine companies for me, also the Mines Departments Register, as good bets to spot our quarry. Tarrara's Warhorse can sometimes play it cool, can't he? I don't forget to thank him from both of us. Keep your pecker up, Jodi. Who knows?

Any minute now this here Dr Watson will come up with a real lead. Love to all, including that doe-eyed Carina. Ever your devoted admirer (but not yet your lover—alas!)—-Simon.' Jodi had laughed, and very nearly cried over this letter. In Simon's inimitable fashion he had again given her new hope! She had not known that Alec had any real stake in the Goldflelds. However, when she told Carina of the letter Carina reported that at least two of Alec's absences had been to make quick flights out to the Golden Mile. 'A meeting with the directors of some big gold mine or other. I've forgotten the name. He's not only full of acres but seems very gold-plated too, Jodi . . .' She sighed quite enviously. 'How lucky can Annabelle be! Ah well! There is at least one bit of good news out of the bag. The new engineer from the Main Roads Department is around. You ought to meet him sometime, Jodi. He's single and good to look at. Name of James Forster.' 'I hope there won't be too big a rush,' Jodi said with a laugh. 'You know something, Jodi?' Carina remarked again a week later as they were getting ready for bed. 'No. You tell me, please. Carina.' 'I've just had a horrid thought. One of those trips Alec made to the Golden Mile was to interview somebody. He marked it on his desk calendar. He wrote—Interview, 11.30 a.m. Urgent attention! And he had exactly the same note for one of the days he went down to the city. That was about ten days ago. Maybe he wants to see some applicants for something or other himself. He's not telling anyone. Not even his confidential secretary—me—which is odd! Maybe he doesn't trust Simon either—since Simon sent him two nitwits like ourselves from up-over the top side of the world.' 'Simon wasn't wrong in his choice!' Jodi said flatly, as she brushed her hair slowly and rhythmically. "We may not have been what Alec wanted in the first place, but we've done a fairly good job between us. At least I think so. He'd be hard to please—' 'Think so?' Carina said indignantly. 'We're a couple of wage slaves to Alec—if you ask me. I didn't mind working my typing fingers to the bones while I was busily adoring him. I thought I was winning him by diligence. But now I feel different—specially since it's taking him so long to notice my feminine charms —along with the perfect typescripts. I blame Annabelle entirely. Everything she has, by way of "charms", I have too. So she must be working at out-doing me. Underground tactics!' 'Well, if you've changed your mind,' Jodi said idly, 'what about the new Main Roads engineer? Mr James Forster? I know it's a life-and-death matter for you to have someone to keep your heart ticking over!' 'Oh, him?' Carina declared loftily. 'Believe it or not, but Annabelle is playing him for games too! Of course she had met him ages before—down in the city.

New thought! Could she be playing at making Alec jealous? She uses charm, grace, sweet gentleness and loverly understanding. She holds all the winning tricks. Poor Mr Engineer Forster! He probably doesn't know what's hit him! Personally, I think she just likes male attention. From one—if the other isn't there!' Jodi laughed as she put her brush and comb away. 'Gossip can really be fun sometimes,' she said. 'You have most of it, Carina. I miss out because I'm free from the Medical Unit always at the wrong times. There's hardly anyone about when I come off duty.' 'Trouble with you, Jodi, is that you don't have the simple art of gossip, anyway. You don't ask the right questions when you do start chatting to people. Shall I tell you something else the town is madly talking about just now?' 'I'm human, so I'd like to know,' Jodi agreed. 'Fire away —as long as it's not something depressing.' 'Well, you asked for it, so here it comes. One of those post office girls who distributes the mail from the bus when it comes in—can recognize handwriting.' 'So what?' Carina was practising her smile in the mirror. "The town knows that you write letters to Simon,' she said. 'And that Simon writes letters to you. Lots of chin-wagging about that. Lots and lots and lots. They've all but got the wedding day dated.' 'Oh dear! Well I suppose there's no reason why they shouldn't know we write to each other. There's nothing secret about my friendship with Simon. Nor for that matter—' 'Yes, darling?' Carina interrupted. She was looking at Jodi through half-closed eyes, and with the sort of tiny smile Jodi recognized as a sign that Carina was plotting —generally something for her own amusement. Or advantage. 'That "Yes, darling?" had subtle undertones, Carina. You'd better come clean and tell me all.' 'Well—it's simply that Simon – just lately – has been writing to someone else in Tarrara. Well, occasionally anyway. Worse—due to this skill at recognizing handwriting on envelopes—the town knows about that too. Are you going to mind, Jodi?' Surprise, surprise! Jodi thought. Maybe Simon has been corresponding with someone in Tarrara long before I ever even met him. Yet—he is my friend— 'No answer?' asked Carina. 'I believe you're huffy.'

'Not huffy. Just tired. Do you mind if I hop into bed and turn out the light?' 'No. Do both by all means,' said Carina. 'I'm about to hop into bed myself. Sweet dreams!'

Two evenings later, Alec Jardene was in his place at the top of the table. He looked, Jodi thought—not for the first time—as if he were born to that prestige seat. There was something polished and sophisticated and easy about the way he automatically took the lead, even in the dining hall. Out on the job, in his khaki drills and outback stetson hat, he carried the same aura of command. And of attraction too! Carina had gone out to dinner so Jodi was free to sit and think as she ate her meal. Seated on Alec's right hand was another visitor—someone new to Tarrara. And yet . . .? There was something faintly familiar about him—as if she had seen him before. If not in Tarrara then somewhere, someplace else. It must have been on the Overlander coming up to Tarrara. Or perhaps in Perth before she'd got this job? She racked her brains, but could not place him. It was more a mannerism, and the way he looked, than actual real appearance. For some silly reason this recognition of the familiar, which she sensed about this visitor, disturbed her.

When Jodi later glanced up at the top places she caught Alec's eyes on her. He was actually looking at her in a very 'curiosity' way! He said something to the visitor, and then the visitor looked down the table too. Jodi found herself blushing—half with annoyance, half because there was something mystifying about both men tonight. Why were they talking about her? And if so, why did it make her angry? She felt they were intruding. The visitor was not really striking, she thought. Yet there was a special kind of easy kindness about his face. A quiet man, she would say. He was burned a deep brown just as all the men who came into Tarrara from the outlying districts were sunburned. He probably was just one more farmer—an acquaintance of Alec's. Jodi studiously kept her own face turned away from the top table from then till the end of the meal. For the first time she was really sorry that Carina— with her love of gossip—

had gone dining with Mr Forster, the new engineer, in the special house maintained for government officers. If Carina were only here she would be enlightening about who and what Alec's guest might be. In spite of missing her Jodi did not begrudge Carina her new preoccupation with what she called—The Game for Annabelle's Second Man! Now, she had wondered, was James Forster also to be Carina's Second Man? Poor Mr Forster! Or was he a lucky man? Two of the town's charmers at his feet! 'Don't think I've settled for a mere two, Jodi pet,' Carina had said earlier. 'Actually, there just could be a Third Man in the offing. For me, that is. Not Annabelle. Don't look pained, Jodi. After all, I have fun, don't I? What's life for anyway? If I miss out on Number Two—the same way I can't make a dent in dear darling Alec Jardene— why then I'll have Number Three to fall back on, won't I? Aren't you curious, my pet?' 'No,' Jodi said. 'I'd spoil your fun if I were, wouldn't I? You love to keep me wondering. So for this time I shan't even hazard a guess.' 'You will, you will!' Carina said cryptically. 'I don't expect you'll mind one bit. You'd better not, anyway!' What goes with Carina now? Jodi had wondered. For once she looks the smallest bit doubtful. 'Good evening, Jodi,' Alec said. He arrived at the door as she was about to leave the canteen. 'Has all been well at the Unit this last day or two? I'm sorry to have been absent myself. I've been busy elsewhere.' 'Yes, thank you. Everything has gone splendidly,' she answered. 'There's nothing to report to Dr Burns and no entries in the Record Book for you to check.' She smiled in a way that lit up her face. It was a lovely smile. 'This week Tarrara is in marvellous good health,' she added, with a touch of mischief. 'Could it be the weather, or the new houses springing up so quickly?' Alec bent his head a little sideways as if to see her more clearly. There was something curious, yet perceptive and kindly in his manner which in itself was most mysterious. It almost made Jodi want to blush except that she used an extra load of will power to stop that. She couldn't stop her heart responding to the unexpected something in his manner—yet she feared it had some ulterior motive. She was aware too of the visitor standing near him. He too kept looking from Alec to her. Then back again. What on earth is going on? she asked herself, bewildered. 'I'd like to introduce our latest visitor to Tarrara,' Alec said. 'This is Richard Chapman—though he's mostly known as Rick. He has a farm some considerable distance away. He has come across country to see how we're

making out here—since the floods.' 'How do you do?' Jodi said, and held out her hand. Richard Chapman seemed embarrassed as he held her hand. But in an engaging kind of way, Jodi thought. Did I meet him in Perth? Or just see him somewhere? In a hotel dining-room . . .? Alec was still watching her. She began to feel uncomfortable. Richard Chapman was watching her too—sort-of uncertainly: puzzled. What on earth is going on? Jodi asked herself again. She put her hand to her cheek, then her hair. She was sure there was something wrong with her appearance—wrong in quite a catastrophic way too. Oh! for a mirror! she almost prayed. 'I expect we'll see each other again,' Richard Chapman was saying. Jodi's attention came back to him. He was younger than Alec. He had the tough, pleasant, sun-weathered appearance of some of the younger farmers she had seen come into town. In most respects he looked like one of them— tallish, lean, brown. 'You will be meeting again for sure,' Alec said briefly. 'We've fixed a date for the Picnic Races at Mandura. Today fortnight.' Again something personal— and attractive—crept into his smile. Jodi felt that twang in her heartstrings again. But this time it hurt. There was something behind her eyes too, that made her want to cry. 'Don't let anyone be lost or sick on that day, Miss Dean, will you?' he was saying. 'I want the whole town out at Mandura for a full holiday. You and Carina particularly. It will be your first Picnic Races, won't it?' 'Yes . . . thank you . . .' she said automatically, still not knowing whether anything was making sense any more. He had called her 'Miss Dean'. Why? He had said it deliberately. Either she was nutty, or he was! '

CHAPTER FIFTEEN The fortnight passed, and the day came for the Picnic Races at Mandura. The fizz and bubble of excitement began twenty-four hours earlier. Like everyone else in Tarrara it touched Jodi and Carina with a sense of bustle and giddy anticipation. What was everyone going to wear? Did one wear a hat, and if not, did one go through the rigmarole of having a hairset?

'Blow hairsets or hats!' Carina said loftily. 'My problem will be which wiglet! Jodi, you'll have to help me make up my mind.'

No one, but no one, was sick. Jodi thanked whatever gods there were watching over Tarrara! Mrs Lorne insisted she would stay on call at the Unit. She didn't care for races, or for standing about in the open either—even though the heat had gone with the sun—way up over Capricorn. She also said she was not going to drive all of those thirty miles out to Mandura for the non-pleasure of seeing Annabelle Stacy acting as a self-appointed hostess to Alec Jardene. Mrs Lome agreed with Carina that Annabelle was a very charming girl. Tn fact,' she had said, divulging the town's secret, 'everyone feels the same about Annabelle. She is generous to everyone, man, woman and child. But she's too darn good and charming to be true! Alec Jardene found that out years ago. If he likes to be taken in for the second time? Well, not in front of me, for I won't be there!' Carina was delighted with this lengthy and pointed diagnosis coming from another besides herself. 'Mrs Lorne and I see eye to eye,' she reported to Jodi when they were dressing on the great day. 'Annabelle has so many gifts and virtues she has to be suspect from the start.' 'I thought you were conserving most of your energy to compete with her?' Jodi said mildly. 'You even wanted to learn her techniques. Or did I hear you wrong?' 'Of course you heard right!' Carina patted down her short skirt smoothly. 'If her techniques were successful— well, they were at least worth studying. You must agree to that, Jodi.' 'What I really think is that you're a pair,' Jodi said, struggling with one strand of hair that would not lie down and be good. 'You do at least have the virtue of being not only frank, but seen and known to be frank, Carina. Do fix this darn bit of hair at the back for me—please. Here's a bobby pin—' 'Well, hold still, my pet. What we really need is a load more hair spray. Now about that frankness. Well, you said it, Jodi. I didn't. But now I'll darn well have to live up to it. There—that piece of hair lies down, but there's another bit here. Pass me another bobby pin. Well, as I was saying . . .' Carina paused while she adjusted Jodi's hair. 'Something about being frank, wasn't it? Well Jodi darling, my best friend ever—I'd better tell you something because you might be in for a bit of a shock today. When we get out to those races, I mean. I wouldn't like you to think I didn't warn you in advance. Now, just hold still —a wee bit more hair spray to keep this bit down—' 'You're trying to tell me that Simon will be there? And that you'll be busy giving him the glad eye—as you have been doing ever since he arrived some

days ago?' 'Jodi! You've noticed! How dare you not tell me? Well . . . actually . . . it's worse than that, pet. From his secret correspondence—envelopes carrying printed name and all that—he just could be the one to be giving me the glad eye. There now! The cat's out of the bag. Your hair looks gorgeous. It's such a pity you haven't a boy friend . . . Wait! Hold everything. The engineer! Hooray! I've thought of it in time! Do you know, he doesn't care for any farming types at all? He's professional. Well, being a nurse.... we could...' 'Thank you, Carina, I think my hair looks fine. As for the engineer—I've met him. He's nice, and in spite of his not liking farming people I'm inclined to think he does like Annabelle.' 'Yes,' said Carina, standing back first to admire Jodi's hair then to monopolize the mirror to admire her own. 'But alas for him, poor dear, she's already hooked to Alec' 'Oh for goodness' sake!' Jodi was beginning to feel irritated. This conversation wasn't very dignified. There were more important things in life than boy friends and love affairs! Deep inside her the tiny little voice of conscience whispered—But are there? Isn't it love that makes the world go round? All the same Carina's chatter about conquests (doubtful) and matrimonial ambitions (changeable)—all the way from England to here, several hundred miles in the Australian bush—was a bit too much! 'For goodness' sake, Carina,' she repeated. 'If you're trying to tell me you are about to exploit the possibilities of having an affair with Simon.... then I don't mind in the least. I don't mind if you walk about hand in hand for everyone to see, if that is what you intend to do. I just don't mind. Has that registered?' Carina pouted. Under her cap of soft curls her face was very pretty and very young. Even a little childish. Jodi's heart softened. It all meant so very much to Carina! And why not? 'I'm sorry,' she apologized. She put her hat on and gave her dress a tug here and a lift there. 'Simon has been doing a hunt-and-find job for me, Carina,' she explained. 'That is all. His latest news is that Alec has been a big help in the matter, though why he ever told Alec, let alone asked him for help, I'll never know. Except I wouldn't mind how many people are told or asked—if only they could find some news for me. I ought to have realized when I arrived in Australia, my job would pin me down. No matter how near I was to the Goldfields.' 'Yes, well, I know a bit about that too,' Carina said, a little awkward for once. 'I didn't pry, Jodi. Cross my heart. Simon told me.'

'Simon, like Carina, talks too much,' Jodi said sharply, yet not unkindly. She picked up her handbag and checked her handkerchief, lipstick, powder-pack and comb. 'Not that there is anything confidential about it all, except that when something is very personal and very near to one's heart—well then— one finds it hard to talk about it. That's all. End of message. If you're ready, Carina, let's hurry. You're going with the Thorntons, aren't you? I'm going with the Patersons. Oh, I do hope they've dressed Jacky Boy in that sailor suit Dr Burns brought over from the shops at Cracker Creek. He looks an angel in it.' 'If you can't have a baby of your own, Jodi, I guess it's lots of fun to have someone else's,' Carina said pointedly. 'Well—maybe.' For one moment Jodi was quite serious. Carina fluttering in a wide-brimmed droopy hat, letting the breeze flow choosily through her pretty nylon georgette dress, did not notice. She was too busily planning ahead —to make a sensation. She does look really very young and very lovely, Jodi thought. No wonder . . . She did not finish her thought. Today, she wanted to enjoy everything and everyone— even including herself.

Out at Mandura Jodi suddenly fell very quiet. The Patersons, including Jacky Boy, were busy meeting and greeting friends who worked on Alec's property. Mr Paterson, newly back from the north, was full of happy-sounding loud spirits. He'd made a 'packet' up there at Mount Tom Price and saw everything through rose-coloured spectacles now. He'd missed all the sickness and worry, but no one was unkind enough to remind him of that. 'Excuse us please, Jodi. You won't mind will you?8 Mrs Paterson pleaded. She was in the pink of health—all 'nerves' gone—now her husband was home and the children were well. 'Jake and Myra Hayes—our cousins—want to show us their new cottage. Alec Jardene built it out at the far boundary for them. Jake's going to manage the stud for Mandura from now on. Everything's turned out so wonderful for us all!' Jacky Boy clung to Jodi's hand. She felt like clinging to his hand too, but parents plus Jake and Myra were too much for the small boy. The fascination of farm animals was a winning card anyway.

All the guests from Tarrara had been greeted on arrival at the homestead gates by Mandura's farm manager and his wife, Mr and Mrs Corbett. Alec, it was explained, was busy mustering up the horses and their riders, and chatting up stewards for the races. It was a wonderful day. The last of summer, and a day made in heaven. It was

warm in the sun but cool under the shady trees. Mandura had had picnic races for so many years, and was such a large property, a paddock had long ago been set aside specially for the races on this one occasion of the year. All around, in graceful clumps, stood the pale-stemmed twisted gums. Further back from the wire-fenced course were clumps of wattle and more river gums near the creek. Log benches and picnic tables, weathered over the years by alternate sun, wind, and rain, stood waiting for this year's load of visitors, and the endless cartons of food and drinks. Stalls were set up under the shade trees for snacks. In a patch of open space the barbecue fires were laid with timber logs resting on a neat pile of mallee roots. These would be lit later, at sundown. Jodi, alone for a few minutes after the Paterson family had gone off, wandered happily around the ring. She gazed about her at the collection of bush people and farmers. Some who were fashionably dressed were obviously visitors from the far-off city. Dust-covered cars—kangaroo bars across the front—rolled up in a long stream to make a half-circle fifty yards away from the course. The ladies and children wore their best clothes. There was such an array of sun hats, sunshades and figure-flattering dresses. The men, other than those riding, wore their ten-bale hats. Their slim leathery figures and the gleam of their white teeth in the dark tan of their smiling faces marked them out almost as a race of their own. They were lean, wiry, and laconic in their soft, tight-lipped speech. Jodi thought she had never anywhere seen such a spirit of camaraderie as parties, newly arrived, called to other parties already staking their claims under the shady trees. Some people—old friends, old residents of the district from long back, had come many miles. Some had come several hundreds of miles to this the annual outing to Mandura. There were a number of real outbackers from the far north, or the desert-land stations towards the interior. Bark brown and wizened by weather, they wore their occupation in their faces. Some of these men, slim and leathery, walked with a slight roll. Each had a string of two or more horses along with him. These were men who went from outback town to outback or country town the year round to try their mounts against the best that a country racecourse could offer. Some were professional rodeo men. Some professional horse-breakers. The scene was so colourful that Jodi was absolutely thrilled. She forgot all her own worries. She had never dreamed of ever taking part in something like this. It was like a Western colour film: only real. And better because she herself was an extra in it. She sat on a stump under a tree to watch, and miss nothing. She had lost sight of Carina, but she actually liked being alone for a while. She was enthralled

with the sights around her and wanted to store it all away in her memory. What a long letter she would write home to her parents this week-end! If only she could catch a glimpse of Alec— well then her cup would be full. Dear Alec, she thought. Then was furious with herself. Why were there neartears behind her eyes when she was enjoying everything around her? When she was so excited? She watched one man giving his horse a try-out run round the centre of the paddock and wondered how man and beast could look so belonging to each other. They were part of each other, and were moulded together with some invisible matrix. She had been to a riding school when she was a little girl but she had never seen anyone that had quite the seat on a horse that these people had —even the young girls and women now parading. At the gallop they rode back off the horse's neck, and always their feet were long in the stirrup. One rider after another seemed to turn his horse on sixpence and she wondered why people ever had to go to Austria to observe the trick. She wondered where Alec was now? Where her lost brother was now? Why did this sun above the paddock shine warmly, when it was nearly time for winter? Out of her daydream, Jodi saw Alec riding past. He wore the tight-legged khaki trousers and khaki shirt they all wore. His hat was flat-brimmed and low on his brow. He was a striking figure on that beautiful bay mount! The horse's long flowing mane made him look like fire in the wind as he raced past. Jodi had a lump in her throat. Then she had to swallow it quick because a dark shadow was thrown across her shoulder. A man had walked up—almost noiselessly—across the dried crackling grass. He had stopped right beside her. 'To read your face,' he said quietly, 'you are enjoying this very much—er —Miss Dean!' 'Oh yes!' Jodi said quickly to cover her surprise. 'It's so formal, isn't it? So colourful . . .' Then she recognized him. He was Alec Jardene's dinner visitor of a fortnight before. She frowned as she struggled for his name. Then she had it. 'It's Mr Chapman, isn't it? It was kind of you to remember me. We only met for a minute.' 'Yes. I'm Richard Chapman. I'm generally called "Rick", you know. I remember you quite well. Alec pointed you out to me before we were introduced.' He wasn't so shy now, though he was not quite at ease. There was something anxious about his eyes as he looked at her. She remembered her own uneasy feeling that they must have met before. Did he have it too? 'Alec pointed me out? Well . . . perhaps you were interested in the fact that we have a resident nurse at Tarrara?'

'Yes... if I had thought about it. But I hadn't. May I sit down? Thank you. There is room for us both on this stump. Actually Alec thought I might have known you. He asked me—well, had I met you somewhere before? Did I recognize you?' Jodi half turned. She was staring at him: right into his eyes. This was the strangest, strangest feeling she had ever had. Now, this minute, she thought he was the one straining to find some point in time when they had indeed met. There was this unusual lack of barrier between them. They were strangers, yet it seemed as if each asked a question of the other as acquaintances of long standing might ask. Yet neither knew what was the question. Nor had they any answer to it anyway. 'You weren't on the ship Indiana coming out from England?' Jodi asked, a faint creak in her voice. 'I'm afraid not,' he said slowly. His tired-seeming yet somehow attractive drawl exactly suited him, Jodi thought. He was all Australian—surely? He was tall, lean, burned brown by continual exposure to a fierce sun. Yet this deep sun-weathering made his eyes so very blue. His teeth were so white they —like Alec's and so many others'—were like flashes in his face when he spoke. But he was not easy. Something troubled him. Jodi's back had unconsciously straightened. She sat forward a little as if to see away across the paddock the better. And not look at him. She had to look away. His eyes had stirred some strange feeling in her. Or stirred a thought . . .? It couldn't possibly be . . .? She pressed a hand over her heart because it was thundering. And it hurt. She must be mad! 'You remind me of someone,' he said, slowly, drawling. 'Please don't think it rude of me to stare like this. You see—' He broke off. Jodi kept her gaze fixed on the horses now lining up for a race. Yet she did not really see them because that strange, painful, wonderful thought was trying to fight its way into her mind. And she was afraid. It could be . . .? 'I am like someone you know? Who is that?' she asked steadily. Her mouth was very dry. 'That is the problem,' he said. 'You are not like anyone I know. But you remind me of someone I once knew—I think. I'm not sure. Your eyes. The way you carry your head. Please don't think me brash, Miss Dean. I'm just an Australian bushman. An outback farmer, of sorts. But I think—I'm not sure— you remind me of my mother. My first mother. She died when I was very very young. Too young really to remember.'

Jodi looked away to the horses now racing round by the paddock fence. She closed her eyes. 'Your mother died when you were very young?' Her voice nearly failed her. 'How young?' 'Yes. When I was six. I had other parents later. They were splendid. They did all they could for me—' 'In England?' she asked, very slowly. 'Your first mother, I mean?' 'Yes. I was brought to Australia when I was six years and six months old. Strange . . . I've forgotten so much of that time. Yet I've always remembered the six months tacked on to the six years. One wonders why.' Jodi's eyes opened, but she did not look at him. It could be, she thought, sick with wishing: yet fearful. But how am I to know for certain! What proof! We could never meet again like this by chance. Chance! Alec brought this man to Tarrara. Alec had assisted Simon in his enquiries. Alec had gone out, to the Goldfields. Carina had said so! Jodi looked wildly round the racecourse. Where was Simon? Nowhere. Alec was away over there on a horse cantering up to the judge's box. Oh Alec! she thought. Help me. You know all the answers. You help everyone. Even tumble-down towns too. Please Alec—Help me! She felt a sort of desperation clutching at her. She looked into his face again. He looked straight back into her eyes. His eyes were asking her the same question that her eyes were asking him! He was looking for someone—long lost— too. Hoping. Each knew the other's thoughts. 'You have proof?' she almost begged. 'Your passport?' He shrugged his shoulders. 'Lost long and long ago. I think my parents must have destroyed it because it was out of date and useless. They were happygo-lucky people. Quite indifferent to documents, papers, old accounts— that sort of thing—but good and kind. I really loved them.' 'They have died?' 'Yes. My father first. My mother only a few years ago. I don't grieve for them because they had a happy life. They were the kind that travelled when they could. They knocked out a lot of fun doing it in a carefree inexpensive way. Always tourist class. My father and a friend of his had a small two-man find of a gold mine. They were prospectors by profession. They part-crushed their own rock then took the ore once every month or so into Kalgoorlie to the State Battery. They were free, their own bosses. They made a living—enough to give them the few things they wanted and enough to set me up on a small farm further along the line at Southern Cross. They loved living in the bush. So did I.'

'But the other man? Your father's partner?' 'He eventually sold out to the Great Star Rise Company. That was a company that Alec Jardene's people had an interest in. I have a small interest in it too— a legacy from my father. That's how Alec caught up with me. He is still a substantial shareholder in Great Star Rise. And in other mines. Simon Mansion, a Stock and Station agent, wrote to me. Then Alec came out to see me on my farm. Between them they'd traced some old Great Star Rise records, and my present small holding. They keep all those things in the Mining Company's office right back to the earliest day in the Goldfields. They turned up my father's Miners Licence in the Mines Department' 'Alec hadn't met you before, but he asked you to come to Tarrara?' Jodi asked carefully—because of the frog in her voice. 'Yes. After we'd put in an evening talking things over. That was three weeks ago.' 'You came—to look at a girl? Then to speak to her? Just in case you remembered? That is, if there was anything about that girl you could remember? You weren't sure?' Their eyes were buried in each other's. Hoping yet fearing. 'Your name—"Dean"? It didn't mean a thing. Yet there was something about you. Something intangible—the way you carry your head.' There was a long silence. 'We can never really know,' Jodi said at length, sadly. 'We couldn't pretend, could we? We couldn't take it for granted?' He shook his head. 'We'd never really know,' he agreed slowly, looking away through the trees to where the horizon never really ever met the sky. 'We would each be forever asking an unanswerable question,' he went on. 'We would always be looking for a proof. Even looking for someone else—' Jodi dropped her eyes to her hands where they lay, fingers entwined, in her lap. 'But it was good of Alec and Simon to try, wasn't it?' she said soberly. It was a cruel way for Alec to have confronted us like this. But perhaps wise. The sunshine seemed to have gone out of the day for her. The horses were galloping. The bystanders were barracking in full voice. The gay sunhats fluttered a little in the light breeze that had sprung up. The very young children were cluttering near the merry-go-round, and licking ice-cream with a will. Jodi and Richard Chapman sat on the log under the shady tree as if they dared not part, yet knew they could not stay there forever—islanded by their own wishful thinking.

Presently he got up and walked away, then came back a few minutes later with two ice-creams. He gave one to Jodi. 'I haven't licked an ice-cream in a cone since I was a boy,' he said. 'Nor me,' Jodi said. There was a long silence, as together they licked ice-creams as if they, too, were children again. 'What colour ice-cream? What brand name?' Jodi asked suddenly. He shook his head. 'I don't remember.' 'I don't either—except the ones I had when I went to live with my new father and mother.' 'You are happy with them?' 'Oh yes. Wonderfully so. You see, they wanted a child so much. They often told me how they looked and looked everywhere, hunted and hunted till they found the one they wanted. I was the one they wanted. Just me. The story made me love them so much. Gratitude, I suppose, but for their own sakes—' 'I felt that way too. Wanted.' Her eyes clung to his again. 'Don't you think.... there are so many pieces of the jigsaw . . . that seem to fit? We have the same coloured eyes. Something about your nose. And mine. Don't you think it's more probable than possible that we are....' Jodi faltered. She could not bring herself to say those fateful words—'brother and sister'. 'Yes. If only we had some proof! One tiny shred. If we didn't really know, there'd always be a doubt, wouldn't there? We'd be forever hunting around— just in case. Look, I know you are Miss Dean. Alec would tell me nothing more. No details. He thought we had to know. Couldn't I call you by your Christian name?' 'Of course,' Jodi said, puzzled. 'Didn't Alec tell you—?' 'No. He had a long talk with me but he left out as much about you as possible. On purpose. As there was no paper proof I think he thought we might know ourselves, one way or the other, once we'd met. He didn't want to give any clues in advance. Anyhow, here he comes now. We'll ask him, shall we? About a few other things too?' Alec, striding across the grass, looked to Jodi like some king-god come to dispense happiness. Or maybe sorrow! He was so sure and confident—the way he walked. He had authority: and a sort-of quiet deadly will. As he came towards them his eyes were dead-pan, in a strange way.

'I hope you are enjoying yourselves,' he said as he came up. He glanced from one to the other. Then he looked beyond them at the horses thundering round the paddock course. 'Very much, thank you!' Rick Chapman said. 'I'm glad you asked me across to this show, Alec. It's the grandest I've seen yet. For Picnic Races, I mean. I'm sorry, but I'll have to take off sometime before midnight. If the rain comes our way I have to start seeding.' Past Rick's shoulder, in the distance, Jodi could see Simon and Carina. They were holding hands ecstatically as they walked along. Well, that's that! she thought—more glad than sad. So Simon is Carina's Third Man. I think I guessed. Ah well . . . Alec looked from Jodi to Rick again. 'Is that all you have to tell me, Rick?' he asked, a note of regret in his voice. 'It was kind of you to bring us together, Alec,' Jodi said quietly, keeping a stiff upper lip. He frowned. 'Rick,' he said, 'you mean you and Jodi don't think—' 'Jodi?' Rick said, startled. 'Not Jodi. It's Joyday! I always called her—' He broke off. He turned and stared at Jodi as if something had hit him. Jodi might have seen a lightning strike. Her face went pale. The next minute it was suffused with colour. 'Dick, not Rick!' she said. 'That's it!' Her voice lifted. 'I couldn't remember what Dick called me. I tried. Sometimes I nearly remembered. Then it would go. I was only three and a half. My brother called me Joyday. He always called me Joyday!' She stopped, then added almost sadly, 'No one else did.' She put her hands out, and Rick took them in his. He held them so tight it almost hurt. Alec turned quickly away so as not to intrude. 'Please don't go, Alec,' Jodi said, in spite of the lump in her throat. 'We owe this.... this.... well, this, to you. We'd like you to share—' 'That's kind of you.' His smile flashed on again. Jodi, surprised, saw that she had given him real pleasure by that invitation. Pleasure beyond the usual. It meant something to him that she was happy! 'I think Carina and Simon might be coming this way,' Alec said. 'Would you like me to head them off? I'm afraid Simon looks as if he is having another fair weather change,' he added.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN A fair weather change?' Jodi asked, puzzled. 'You mean he is showing signs of falling in love with Carina? That doesn't alarm me, Alec. Underneath Carina's gay talk she hides a heart of gold. I'm sure she'll be good for Simon. That is, if they both keep on looking at each other the way they're looking just now—and don't have another fair weather change. I'm so happy myself today I'm delighted to see they are too. In fact everybody—' !

Alec watched her face as she spoke. The glad look was lighting up her eyes. It was unmistakable. Happiness made for loveliness with Jodi right now. He looked away as if something had touched him too. 'I'm glad of that,' he said, watching Carina and Simon who had turned away and taken another direction. Beyond them he could see other couples strolling about under the shade trees. He glanced around again past Jodi and Rick, and past Carina and Simon. 'It seems joy-day for everyone—' he finished. There was irony in his voice. 'Annabelle and our new Main Roads engineer seem to have become very close friends at quite short notice. Is it something to do with the weather? Or the fact that my Race Day seems to be a success—for this year?' Jodi looked in the direction where Alec nodded his head. Sure enough—there was Annabelle strolling along with her arm linked in Jamie Forster's arm. 'There's something for everyone,' she said. Then broke off. For everyone but Alec? Does he mind about Annabelle defecting, or appearing to defect—and in public too! How would she ever find the answer to that? 'I hope you will both come to the homestead, after the barbecue.' Alec changed the subject. And the line of his attention too. 'There are a few more explanations to be ironed out, I expect. How about it. Rick? You would rather do the ironing tonight than sometime later? I know that rain's forecast by the radio. And it's due your way. What about your seeding?' 'I'll make the farm before daylight if I drive through the night,' Rick said. "Thank you, Alec. I'll accept your invitation. Jodi—Joyday? You will come?' 'Yes, of course—except—' 'No exceptions,' Alec said bluntly. 'You are coming, Jodi.' 'I came with the Patersons. I know they intend going back to Tarrara at sundown.' 'I'll send your apologies to the Patersons. We'll make some arrangements about getting you back from the homestead, later.'

Alec's words were his will, Jodi knew from experience. Besides—she was longing to see his homestead. There was a lifetime of news to exchange with Rick. Or was he Dick? 'I accept with pleasure,' she said, and her smile was lovely. All over again. Once again Alec flashed on one of his own rare smiles to match. She didn't know whether it meant he was pleased he had his own way or because she had accepted. She wished she knew. If you'll excuse me now,' Alec asked, looking now from one to the other, 'I've to speak to a dozen or more people before the races finish. Jodi, I'll get my manager and his wife to look after you until all the guests have gone. I v must go now.' And he was gone—even as he was speaking. Jodi and Rick exchanged a glance, then laughed. 'I think Alec always gets his own way,' Jodi said. 'It's a sort of magic. But then, it's a magic day, isn't it?' 'I kinda think he arranges to get his own way,' Rick said in his slow-speaking drawl. 'But it was a good piece of work he did for us—blitzing through those mines' records. And coming out to my place to see me. I think he's a kinda very good man. He's some feller, if you ask me, Jodi—Joyday. First he found the names of my parents, then in seven days he'd found me. He calls it "influence" but I call it a record. Half of it done by telephone and radio and telegram. I liked him when he came out to my farm to see me. I was impressed with his knowledge, and the speed with which he did things. I fell in with his wishes—instanter. On trust. That says a lot in itself.'

The Mandura Picnic Races came to an end with a blazing sunset—crimson, gold and amethyst—to usher out the day with magnificence. Jodi felt as if she'd had a million-to-one chance in a Good Luck lottery. She had found her lost brother. She still couldn't quite believe it. It had all been too sudden. 'I'm dreaming,' she kept saying. Then—'I suppose they didn't tell me—for fear of disappointing me.' Rick kept repeating. 'They had to be sure. They had to test us out.' They wandered round the race paddock, then over the track to the tethered horses under the trees. From there to the homestead's outhouse and stables. Rick explained to Jodi the huge pieces of farm machinery standing about, and the work they did. 'Will I come and see your farm one day?'

'Of course. That's taken for granted. What's more, as you have parents and I've lost even my second lot, I want you to bring Mr and Mrs Dean out here to see my farm. Do you think they'll come?' 'Of course they will. They said they'd come out for a holiday. I'm sure they will come now they know about you, Rick. They wanted me to find you. For their own sakes too. They wanted me to have my brother.' 'Then we'll accept the fact that they'll come. It's not fair on Alec if you go home just now. Besides, your friend Carina and that young chap Simon look like they might think of getting married.' 'One never can tell with Carina, but I want to stay here. I'm sure my parents will come. till then—' 'We'll put our heads together and encourage them to come and have a looksee. Agreed?' 'Agreed,' said Jodi happily. They were still talking together as they wandered under the pepper trees at the side of the homestead when Jane Corbett, Alec's housekeeper, who was also the manager's wife, came looking for them. 'Please do come inside,' she said. 'I'm sure you'd both like a wash-up. Then we'll have drinks in the living-room. Alec is changing now.' Inside the homestead Jodi gazed around in wonder. It was an old house but full of character. The colonial jarrah furniture was highly polished, and it shone in its beautiful rich red-brown colours. The two armchairs on either side of the fireplace would have been there a hundred years perhaps. The hall had the same polished jarrah, but the living-room—leading off to the billiard room—was carpeted from wall to wall. Everywhere, in the ornaments, furniture and pictures, were lovely mellowed colours. 'Please call me Jane, and my husband is Mick,' the housekeeper said in her friendly way. 'We all use Christian names. It's a habit of the country. You don't mind if I call you Jodi?' 'Of course not. I'd be delighted.' 'She'd like it even better if you called her Joyday,' Rick said in his slow dry way. Jane Corbett looked puzzled, but Jodi touched her arm. 'If I don't have time to explain that now, I'm sure Alec will later. Joyday is a sort-of open-sesame of a name.' 'It sounds pleasantly mysterious,' Jane remarked as she ushered Jodi down a wide passage to a large beautifully comfortable bedroom. "The guest room,' she explained. 'Always ready in case of unexpected visitors.

You'll find a bathroom leading from that door on the right. It's all your own. Outside those glass doors on the other wall is a side veranda. Some guests like to sleep out, so there's a bed always made up there. That is in addition to the bed in here, of course.' 'Everything is beautiful,' Jodi said, feeling a catch at her heart. How lucky would be the one who someday might marry Alec and have a room like this for ever and ever! When Jane Corbett had gone Jodi slipped off her dress and headed for the bathroom. Thank goodness I brought my make-up, she thought with relief. It would have been too embarrassing to ask nice Jane Corbett for such privileged things as foundation cream, powder and lipstick. The late meal was home bred, home grown, and beautifully cooked. Alec was the perfect host at the top end of the large family table. Mick and Jane Corbett were relaxed and easy talkers. Jodi was silent, not because the talk between the Corbetts, Alec and Rick was so much an exchange of farming news, but because now—suddenly—she was all but tired out. Reaction had set in. 'So quiet?" Alec asked her over the top of his wine-glass. Rick was at that moment telling the Corbetts some of the things he remembered of fringemining in his youth— a gold rush, of mullock heaps and winch-mining. 'In a way—tired,' she admitted reluctantly. 'But I'm enjoying myself—just listening. I can't bear to miss a thing—' 'There's all the rest of your life to spend listening,' he said. Jodi caught his eyes, then looked away quickly. She was imagining things of course, but for one second she had thought there was something really tender in his eyes. Something of concern, perhaps. But not— She left the thought unborn. 'You're not going back to Tarrara tonight,' Alec was saying—the Dictator once again. 'That's for certain.' 'But I must. I mean, I haven't—' 'Night clothes? Powders, paints, brush and comb? Jane has all of those things in store against visitors who now and again stay the night unexpectedly. Rick says he needs to take off for Southern Cross as soon as the meal's finished. He smells rain, like all good farmers can. Out there in the wattle and salmon gum country they're so short of rain, the people sometimes develop extra senses. Rick tells me the old farmer who has the block next to him has never been wrong.' 'I hope Rick is right,' Jodi said fervently. 'He says he needs the rain very badly. It's been a dry year. Rain's a life-and-death matter for his crops.' 'It always is with the farmers out there. They don't have it easy. Every now

and again they have a near-drought year.' Alec had been right when he said Jane Corbett had all that an unprepared visitor could need. She produced everything as if it had been Jodi's own home —except for one thing. She had a low-cut lacy, very adventurous nightdress, and no pyjamas. Jodi had never slept in anything but shortie pyjamas. She accepted the nightdress with good grace because it was so beautiful. It was very flattering too, although there was hardly anything of it—really. 'I hope it will be warm enough round the shoulders if you are thinking of sleeping on the veranda,' Jane said doubtfully. I could lend you a jacket. Of course Annabelle Stacy when she stays the night always sleeps on the veranda. She won't have a jacket. But then she's hardened to this climate.' That was enough for Jodi. No more international comparisons between herself and Annabelle, thank you! 'If Annabelle is hardy, then so am I,' she decided. 'And I'm going to wear this lovely thing too, and just love myself in it. What Annabelle can do I can do. I'll go without the jacket, thank you, Jane.' 'Of course—you shall have just what you want, my dear,' Jane said with a laugh. 'Alec was the one insistent you would want to sleep indoors. However, he needn't know.' She smiled her last goodnight and went out, closing the door quietly behind her. When Jodi slipped between the sheets on the veranda bed she realized just how much change of temperature there was from the inside of the homestead and the outside. Also between midday and midnight. The sheets were icy cold, but had a wonderfully exhilarating effect. If she curled up she would soon warm herself. She lay there on her back looking up at the dark blue dome of heaven. It was positively littered with stars. They were so bright it was hard to believe they were real stars, and that she was not imagining them. She could pick out the Pointers, and the Southern Cross. Wide awake now, she thought about the wonder of having found Rick. And of the marvelous thing Alec and Simon had done for her—without saying much about it either. They'd turned the world round on its axis and found Rick for her as if it was just one more thing in a daily round of things. She thought about parting from Rick earlier when he had driven off to cover some hundreds of miles through the night to reach his own farm by morning. They still had so much to say to each other.... I guess we're both suffering from shock, she thought. But there's next time, and all the next times. Then if Mam and Dad come out— Her thoughts were broken off by the sound of a dog leaping up on to the veranda. He shook himself, then fell to scratching. Finally he settled down against the wall near her bed—giving out a last sigh of content because now

his day was over too. Alec's kelpie dog! she thought. He hadn't left Alec's side all the evening. Perhaps he had come to keep her company. It was a nice thought, true or false! A minute later, she heard another sound. In the wake of his dog Alec was stepping up on the veranda. He shone a torch-light at the kelpie to make sure he was there. As the beam moved along the wall Jodi put her hands over her eyes to shield them from the light. She froze still in her bed. Alec would not be expecting her to sleep on the veranda. Jane Corbett had said so. He thought her less hardy than someone like Annabelle! Even with her eyes covered she knew the torch-light had swung round, and found her. 'It's only me, Alec,' she said in a weak voice. Actually she was very embarrassed. 'I wanted to sleep out. Just for the experience. I never have— you know. I mean— I've never slept outside—on a veranda—' 'Good heavens! We're not in summer now, Jodi.' He sounded very angry. 'There could be a frost. I'll get an extra cover for you.' He took a stride down the veranda and switched on a light further along. He took a blanket from a large box standing by the wall. The light cast no more than a glow over Jodi and for this small mercy she was very thankful. Alec came back to the foot of the bed. His steps still sounded like the thunder of artillery approaching. Like the footsteps of one very angry man too. He at least, she thought dolefully, was not like the politicians. By the noise he made he didn't intend to keep anything hidden from the general public. He doubled the cover and handed it to her. 'Now wrap that thing round you. Right round you. I'm taking you inside!' 'You are not—Oh, I'm sorry Alec. It is your house, of course. I'm only a guest. I wanted to sleep out and be as tough as Annabelle, I suppose. If you don't mind going away, I'll do as you ask. Reluctantly. But I will go inside. I promise.' She was struggling to get the cover round her without displaying even from the frail glow of the distant light the glamorous but negligible night attire Jane had given her. Frankly, she told herself, she was downright ashamed to be in anything but a well-tailored pair of pyjamas, but how could she explain that to someone like Alec? Her struggle to hide the lacy nightwear was made clumsy by the fact that he stood there—above her—waiting like some policeman on guard.

'Jodi!' Alec said, exasperated. 'I'll put the blanket round you properly. Didn't Jane find a dressing gown for you?' 'No,' Jodi said, feeling guilty. 'I didn't ask her. I did refuse a bed-jacket, so she might have thought—Well, I don't suppose Annabelle ever borrowed one. I did say I was going to do what Annabelle did. Be hardy—' Oh! If only she could stop prattling on! It was just that she was so embarrassed! 'Confound Annabelle!' Alec said abruptly. 'What has she to do with you sleeping out on a night when the dew will be heavy? Possibly a frost? I'm taking you inside without further damn nonsense.' With one swish and one wrap with his hands he had the rug round her, and the bedclothes thrown aside. She stood up—wobbling on her feet because she was well and truly cocooned. It reminded her of childhood days and sack races. 'Now look what you've done,' she said, beginning to be cross too. She was self-conscious, even humiliated, and wanted to hide it. Even hit back. 'We'll soon settle that,' Alec said. With a quick movement he swept her, cocoon-wrap and all, up in his arms. He carried her in through the french window as if she had no more weight than feather-down. 'Where does Jane keep the confounded light in this room?' he began. 'I'll take you into the study. There are still coals in the fire there. You can warm up. You'll need that.' He kicked the door wide open with his foot and stalked down the passage with Jodi in his arms. His footwear was still making thunder on the silent night air, She wasn't angry or humiliated now. She didn't pretend any more to herself either. Alec wasn't making any bones about carrying her—loud footed— round his homestead at midnight! So she wouldn't make any bones about the fact she liked it. Correct that, she said to herself as she gave a tiny wriggle to snuggle down into the blanket, her face quite accidentally against his throat. I love it. If only he could carry me like this on, on, forever. He pushed open the study door with his foot and carried his burden towards the armchairs near the coal-bright fire. Jodi held her breath, waiting to be dumped with the thrown-down force of a very angry man. But it didn't happen. Alec stood by the armchair and looked down at her. Between the folds of the

blanket Jodi looked up and smiled at him—just that smallest bit undaunted. His arms tightened to iron bands, so she was his prisoner. Then he bent his head and kissed her. It was a long, long kiss. When he lifted his head Jodi had to gasp for breath. 'You asked for that!' he said. still not smiling. 'Did I?' Jodi said innocently, catching her breath. 'I don't remember, but I'm glad I did—if I did. It was lovely.' 'Was it indeed? Well, we'll see if you like it this time—' And he kissed her again. Jodi answered the kiss with her own, and with all her heart too. A long time passed, then it was Alec who sat down in the armchair and Jodi— still wrapped in her blanket—was lying cradled in his arms. She never wanted to leave them. It was quite an hour before they had talked everything out. 'So you see, Jodi, my dear, dear Jodi,' Alec said wryly, his eyes searching hers, 'you knocked me on the cardiac muscle that night when I saw you come into the Medical Unit. That beautiful soft other-climate skin and those blue, very tired but very determined eyes. And the courage not to show it. I didn't have a hat on, but if I had had one I would have dipped it then and there. Well, maybe I would have dipped it then and there—' 'You were all stern, not-to-be-trifled-with, and cold instead.' "That, my darling girl, was a mere cover up. A man is entitled to some defences.' "Thank you for telling me now, Alec. I would never have guessed. Like I would never have guessed you were the falling-in-love kind at all—except later someone or other told me you and Annabelle had once been engaged. You must have fallen—' 'Not engaged' he interrupted flatly. "That's an exaggeration. We were very close to each other. Agreed. We were very young, very foolish and we liked setting up a solid front to confuse our parents. That's the old and universal game through the ages—irritating the older generation! I was nineteen and Annabelle seventeen. You can guess why the combined parental front was one of antagonism. Her parents to me, and mine to her. So we just had fun and games for the sheer nuisance value of deciding it didn't matter what people said.' He paused, then added quickly, The younger generation of every age does it. No, Jodi, Annabelle and I have known one another too well and for too long. The nearest to our combination of talents would be a brother and sister relationship. Of course, Annabelle could be possessive at times. Then we'd blow up, and Annabelle would depart for other climates.'

'Sooner or later she would come back, and you would jog on as before?' Jodi guessed. 'For crying out loud—NO! Annabelle grown-up is much too addicted to the social set down there in the city. In spite of her farm—which she does care about—-she'd only come back for special occasions. The Picnic Races, shearing season, seeding, harvesting.' Alec was silent a moment. Then came the floods,' he went on. 'It was a case of "Now is the time for all good hands to rally to the help of Tarrara!" Annabelle, like everyone else who owned property in the district, came. We needed those extra hands. I used them. Every Jack one of them. I had to.' 'Mine and Carina's too?' 'Yes, yours and Carina's too.' He smiled just a little wickedly. He went on, 'How wrong I was! How able you both are. You have so much courage, Jodi. And ordinary human kindness—the something that most people in Tarrara most needed.' Jodi was lying in his arms, her head on his shoulder. 'Carina and Simon,' Jodi said at length. 'I wonder if it will come off?' 'If it doesn't—they'll have fun in the meantime. I'm glad you didn't really fall in love with Simon, Jodi. That would have hurt. He's full of brains and ideas; and works hard—but in spasms. I like him, but I never can afford to let him know. I wouldn't be able to handle him if he even guessed.' She traced a finger down his cheek. 'Don't ever be hard with me like that, will you, Alec? 8 'Hard with you? Good heavens! Jodi, you've almost turned my heart to putty. If I have seemed tougher than usual, it was a cover up.' 'A cover up!' she echoed thoughtfully. This time it was Jodi who kissed Alec. I love you, Jodi,' he said. 'You will marry me?' 'I love you, Alec. Of course I'll marry you. Do we have to go to bed tonight? It's been such a wonderful day. I don't ever want to end it.' 'Bed be damned!' Alec said. I prefer to see a sunrise than to hear about one.' The coal fire was dying but the room was warm. Jodi had had a long, fantastic day. She was tired. She closed her eyes. Alec rested his cheek on her head. In a minute they would fall asleep. It was warm and comfortable, and the girl he held in his arms was soft and endearing.

He was master in his own home. What the hell did it matter if, and when, they fell asleep, anyway. It had been joyday for Jodi today. Tomorrow was another day, altogether!,