Chapter 1. Gift horses

  1888 Port Campbell Australia

  Innis noticed the straw coloured twine amongst the wreckage

  of the ship. In the sheltered inlet he watched it eddy and swirl

  around the hands and feet of the dead.

  It caught on his rolled up sleeves and bare legs, and it followed

  in his wake as he and Florry dragged the bodies of the passengers

  and crew ashore.

  Since arriving at first light he’d had a growing sense of unease.

  Standing in the shallows he scanned the cliffs above and the

  track that led down to the beach. There was nothing out of place,

  except the bodies and debris, that he and Florry had brought ashore

  and picked through for anything of value.

  His Nain had often said - the guilty flee when no-one pursues.

  He smiled at the thought of the sour old crow, but even repeating

  her words to himself, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was

  being watched.

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  *

  Glenample station was a large pastoral holding surrounded

  on three sides by flat, almost featureless land. To the south it was

  bordered by nearly 50 miles of unbroken sea cliffs and the wild

  ocean of the Bass Straight

  It was at Glenample station that Innis had met Florry.

  Innis was part of a group of travelling stonemasons who'd made

  additions to the homestead and built outhouses on the property.

  The station owner, Mr. Gibson, had offered him a job as a general

  roustabout, and he'd stayed when the others had moved on to the

  goldfields in search of work.

  Florry was a jack of all trades, who worked seasonally across the

  district. He’d worked on boats in the straight and along the coast

  as a whaler, and a sealer, until a badly broken leg put him ashore in

  the nearby settlement of Port Campbell.

  Both were from Cornwall and had become fast friends almost as

  soon as they'd met.

  Mr. Gibson called them his pair of Cornish bastards.

  *

  They were mending a fence when a stockman rode up.

  "Where are you off to George?" asked Innis.

  The stockman was on his way to the telegraph office at the

  nearby railway siding. "Mr. Gibson is sending a message to

  Port Melbourne about the shipwreck."

  Florry put down the roll of fencing wire he was carrying and

  wiped his hands. "What shipwreck would that be then?"

  "Off Mutton Bird island," George said. "maybe five or so miles

  from the homestead."

  The day before he and another stockman had been mustering

  when they came across a survivor from the shipwreck walking

  along the cliff path. A search party had been organized and another

  survivor had been found in a cove below.

  "Where are they now?" Innis asked.

  "Both of them are resting up at the homestead. Mrs. Gibson

  is looking after them."

  As George rode off, Florry turned to Innis. "If we get an early

  start and go further east along the coast, we could get a full

  day of going through whatever washes up before anyone

  comes looking."

  Florry smiled.

  "They don’t call this the shipwreck coast for nothing."

  *

  The next day they arrived before dawn on a clifftop that

  overlooked a series of sheltered coves and inlets.

  In the early light Innis was astonished to see a glowing

  green cloud in the current. "What do you make of that?"

  Florry spat on the ground and scowled. "It's as bad an omen

  as I’ve ever seen." Then he laughed and clapped Innis on

  the shoulder.

  "Don't be getting spooked. I’ve seen it before. It's phosphorous

  matches that were bound for the mines."

  Innis said nothing. He watched the glowing cloud start to fade

  as the sun began to rise. Something felt out of place, but he

  couldn’t say what it was. There was enough light to walk the

  track down from the clifftop to the shoreline.

  "Stop faffing around Innis, gift horses don’t wash up every day."

  *