Yamashita's Gold Read online

  Also by Phillip Gwynne

  The Debt

  Instalment One: Catch the Zolt

  Instalment Two: Turn off the Lights

  Instalment Three: Bring Back Cerberus

  Instalment Four: Fetch the Treasure Hunter

  First published in 2013

  Copyright © Phillip Gwynne 2013

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or ten per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.

  Allen & Unwin

  83 Alexander Street

  Crows Nest NSW 2065

  Australia

  Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

  Email: [email protected]

  Web: www.allenandunwin.com

  A Cataloguing-in-Publication entry is available from the National Library of Australia

  www.trove.nla.gov.au

  ISBN 978 1 74237 861 9

  eISBN 978 1 74343 528 1

  Cover and text design by Natalie Winter

  Cover photography: (boy) by Alan Richardson Photography, model: Nicolai Laptev; (shipwreck) by Zena Holloway / Getty Images; (shark) by Shutterstock

  Set in Charter ITC by BT 10.5/16.5pt by Peter Guo/LetterSpaced

  To Angus, Cat and kids

  Contents

  Thursday: Gold Fever

  Thursday: Seaway

  Friday: Spy vs Spy

  Friday: To Nimbin, Again

  Friday: Enter Only

  Saturday: Sealands

  Saturday: To the Island

  Tuesday: Girly Swot From Hell

  Wednesday: Imogen, oh Imogen

  Wednesday: Jetskis Ahoy!

  Thursday: The Hispaniola

  Thursday: Cinatit

  Monday: Return to Reverie

  Tuesday: The Process

  Tuesday: Shiver me Timbers

  Wednesday: You Gotta Have Faith

  Wednesday: Sign Of The Zodiac

  Thursday: International Day Of Not Answering Your Phone

  Friday: The Argo

  Friday: The Cove

  Saturday: The Nerd Centre

  Saturday: Yamashita’s Gold

  Sunday: The Waiting Game

  Sunday: Cyc lone

  Monday: Geometric Dilution Of Precision

  Monday: Pollux and Castor

  Monday: Gold Gold Gone

  Monday: The Stone Dolphin

  Monday: Wild Animals

  Thursday

  Gold Fever

  ‘You moron!’ I yelled.

  ‘You cretin!

  ‘You utter piece of utter crap!’

  As you can see, I was fast running out of innovative ways to insult the Pacemaster 9650MX Pro treadmill.

  ‘You putrid lump of plastic!

  ‘Yesterday’s technology!’

  Fast running out.

  No matter how much I dissed it, all it could come up with, in that annoying Californian voice, was the usual mundanities.

  ‘You’ve reached the programmed goal’ and ‘Great workout, champ!’

  In the end I thumped the stop button and stepped off the crappy CPU-deficient lump of cretinoid plastic.

  It had once told me to turn off all the lights on the Gold Coast. So why wasn’t it doing what I desperately wanted it to do: give me the fifth instalment, tell me I had to get out there and find Yamashita’s Gold?

  It had been almost three months since I’d returned from Rome, and I’d heard nothing at all from The Debt.

  The day after I’d got back we’d had our usual human barbecue at Gus’s house and I’d had another letter A branded on the inside of my leg.

  Meaning I now had PAGA emblazoned there.

  Which, in case you don’t know, is a small town in northern Ghana, near the Burkina Faso border.

  Which was yet another reason why The Debt needed to get a hurry on, give me the next instalment to repay, so I could get another letter to add to PAGA, so that it ceased to be a small town on the Burkina Faso border.

  As I walked out of the room I ran into Dad coming the other way.

  In his ironed shorts and his ironed singlet, ready for one of his workouts.

  ‘You were sure making plenty of noise in there,’ he said, in that annoyingly bland way he had.

  So would you if you had to go through what I’m going through.

  But, wait – he had been through what I was going through.

  ‘Was it ever like nothing was happening?’ I asked.

  It was a pretty generic type of statement, but Dad knew exactly what I was talking about.

  ‘Maybe you need to just make it happen,’ he said, sounding like an ad for some sort of sporting product. But then, in a voice that had lost all its original blandness, he added, ‘Give yourself a good kick up the bum.’

  I went upstairs to my bedroom.

  ClamTop was sitting on my desk, living up to its name: well and truly clammed shut.

  I gave it some major lip as well.

  ‘You useless craptop!’

  Why wasn’t it talking to me, like it had for the first instalment?

  Why weren’t we out there looking for Yamashita’s Gold?

  We’d captured the Zolt and, more importantly, we’d found out from him where the treasure was.

  We’d decommissioned the Diablo Bay Nuclear Power Station, and the waters adjacent to it, previously off limits to the public, were now accessible to everyone.

  We’d acquired Cerberus, the electronic device that supposedly, once adapted, was perfect for searching for Yamashita’s Gold.

  E Lee Marx, the most experienced and successful underwater treasure hunter in the world, had promised to come to Australia to head up the search effort.

  And I’d read, and re-read, every book I could find about treasure hunting, including all of E Lee Marx’s.

  I’d watched, and re-watched, every TV program I could find about treasure hunting, including E Lee Marx’s.

  I’d devoured every movie I could find that had anything remotely to do with treasure hunting.

  I’d been online, lurking at all the numerous treasure-hunting forums. Never posting, though – I didn’t want anybody to get even a sniff of Yamashita’s Gold.

  And pretty much all my thoughts were thoughts of gold.

  And pretty much all my dreams were dreams of gold.

  And it had occurred to me that my ancestor had the same dreams, the same thoughts, when he came to Australia looking for gold to pay back The Debt. Before he was killed in the Eureka Stockade in 1854, that is.

  Once again I entered e lee marx into Google on my desktop. Once again I hit return. Once again I got the same results I always got, the last reference from months ago.

  If E Lee Marx was in Australia, then Google certainly didn’t know about it; and if Google didn’t know about it, then forget it, it didn’t exist, it hadn’t happened.

  I entered e lee marx into Google, hit enter and – guess what? – got the same results.

  I carelessly tossed my phone onto my bed. And then I carelessly tossed myself onto my bed. Closed my eyes.

  Okay, I get the irony, if that’s the right word.

  The Debt was the worst thing to have come into my life. It had almost killed me about a dozen times in a dozen different ways.

  But here I was wanting, willing, it to contact me. To give
me the next instalment.

  There’s this play we studied at school – Waiting for Godot. Let me tell you, it was pretty excruciating. Just two dudes waiting for somebody to show.

  And that’s why it was so excruciating, because waiting is excruciating.

  Thoughts ricocheting around in my head, my arms and legs twitching – it was like my nerves were on fire.

  Usually this would be the cue for a run, but I’d given up running. In fact, the last time I’d done any at all was the final of the 1500 metres at the World Youth Games in Rome.

  Where I’d come fourth.

  But when I returned home I soon found out that I’d been banned from competitive running for a year because I’d ‘broken team rules’.

  Mrs Jenkins, boss of everybody, boss of everything, had had her revenge.

  I figured that if they could ban me for a year, I could ban them forever – I’d quit running.

  Okay, the posters of famous runners were still on my walls. All the running books were still on my bookshelves.

  But I hadn’t been for a run since.

  ‘Maybe a break’s not such a bad thing,’ is all Gus had said.

  Coach Sheeds hadn’t been so casual about it. ‘Are you kidding?’ she’d thundered. ‘You ran just about the best time for anybody in the world for your age in that heat.’

  So what, this wasn’t a break: I’d seriously quit running.

  And, yes, I still woke up at the same time every morning, but instead of having to get out of bed and put my running gear on, I just lay there as the daylight found its way into my room.

  My phone beeped again.

  Again, a surge of excitement: could this be them?

  No, it was a text from Tristan. A single word: swim.

  Which he had even managed to spell correctly.

  Instead of running, I was swimming.

  And Tristan and I were training together.

  Yes, the same Tristan who only a while ago had kneed me spectacularly in the knurries, turning them into lumps of plasticine.

  But I’d forgiven him that particular act of ultra-violence because a) my knurries had got better and b) if I was going to hunt for underwater treasure I needed to be swim fit.

  As for Tristan, us training together was pretty much the ideal opportunity for him to demonstrate to me how much of a superior swimmer he was.

  And I guess it’s not such a bad thing always to be striving to keep up with somebody who is much faster than you, even if that somebody is a complete tool.

  my pool in ten? I texted back.

  was Tristan’s reply.

  Again he’d spelled it correctly.

  I got out of bed, checked my emails once more, gave ClamTop one last dirty look, changed into Speedos and made for the pool. There were no sounds from downstairs, so I skipped down into the kitchen and out through the back door.

  There was loud music coming from the pool area. I recognised it as Rage Against the Machine, Miranda’s favourite band.

  She must be there, I thought.

  I was right, I could see her now, stretched out on a sun lounge. Bikini. Book. Sunglasses. She was in holiday mode.

  But then somebody else came into view: Seb.

  He was dressed in the khaki of the pool maintenance company and he was scooping leaves from the water with a long-handled net, droplets flying, silver in the sun. Then he stopped scooping and said something to Miranda. She put down her book and said something in reply.

  I stopped.

  It was the first time I’d seen Seb since Rome, and instantly I felt a mixture of emotions, a liquorice allsort of feelings.

  I felt resentful because here he was talking to my sister.

  I felt distrustful because I was pretty sure he was involved with The Debt.

  I felt grateful because without him I doubt whether I could’ve paid the last instalment.

  But then something occurred to me, something actually pretty momentous: if the old Sebster was part of The Debt, then why not use him to communicate with them?

  There was no need for talking treadmills or recalcitrant computers or relentless googling, because here was a real live leaf-scooping human being.

  ‘Hi guys!’ I said, trying, and failing, to keep the excitement from my voice.

  Seb smiled at me and said, ‘If it ain’t Jumpin’ Jack Flash!’

  ‘You taken a happy pill this morning or something?’ said Miranda.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You haven’t exactly been the happiest little Vegemite since you came back from Rome.’

  ‘Probably jet lag,’ I said.

  ‘Months of it?’

  She had a point – Miranda always had a point – but I wasn’t going to get sidetracked.

  ‘Seb, the pool’s looking great,’ I said.

  He gave me a funny look.

  ‘I’ve been swimming a lot lately,’ I said. ‘And the water’s been perfect.’

  Another funny look, but I persevered.

  ‘I’ve been hassling Mom and Dad to let me do a scuba-diving course,’ I said, which was absolutely the truth. If I was going to go searching for underwater treasure, I needed to know how to dive properly.

  ‘That’d be cool,’ he said.

  ‘Then I could go diving anytime anybody wanted me to,’ I said.

  ‘Okay, you’re officially being weird,’ said Miranda. ‘And look who’s arrived just in time to stop you from getting even weirder.’

  The tall, lean shape of Tristan appeared from around the corner, towel slung around his neck, swimming goggles dangling from his hand.

  ‘Great to see you again,’ I said to Seb. ‘You’ve got my number, right, just in case anything comes up and you need to contact me?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Seb, but it was a pretty tentative ‘sure’, and not for the first time I wondered if somehow I had this all wrong, if Seb wasn’t part of The Debt at all.

  I walked over to the end of the pool where Tristan was doing some stretches.

  ‘Ready to eat some bubbles?’ he said.

  I nodded – I was going to eat his bubbles, why pretend I wasn’t?

  ‘Let’s start off with thirty laps of freestyle warm-up,’ he said. ‘Then twenty forty-metre sprints with a five-second break in between. Then we’ll take it from there.’

  ‘Fine with me,’ I said.

  We dived in.

  Even Tristan’s warm-up speed was a challenge for me, and after a couple of laps I was struggling to keep up. Losing rhythm, I was breaking form, throwing in an extra breath every now and then.

  But I was determined not to let him get away from me.

  Because when The Debt gave me the instalment, when they asked me to get Yamashita’s Gold, I wanted to be swim fit, I wanted to be ready.

  After a hundred lengths of the pool, after two kays, Tristan said it was enough, that we’d only have a light session today.

  He left and I flopped onto a sun lounge.

  On the other side of the pool Seb and Miranda were still talking, though from where I was I couldn’t hear what they were saying.

  Somehow, I didn’t think I had it wrong about Seb – he had to be part of The Debt. But I guess the question was: how much of a part was he? How connected was he?

  I was just about to get up when Mom came into view, making straight for Seb and Miranda.

  When I’d first arrived back from Rome, I’d been absolutely determined to confront Mom about San Luca.

  Was she Californian or Italian?

  But exactly the right moment just hadn’t happened, and the days passed, and the weeks passed, and that determination weakened. One day I would confront her. But not until I’d got Yamashita’s Gold.

  She said something to Miranda, and I could tell from the way my sister immediately sat up, the way she snatched off her sunglasses, that it wasn’t just, ‘It’s a nice day.’

  Then Mom walked over to where Seb had recommenced work, the net dipping in and out of the water. They had a conversation,
though my impression was that it was Mom who did most of the talking.

  After they’d finished, Seb took his net and bucket and walked off. Mom had a few more words to Miranda before she disappeared, too.

  I walked over to where Miranda, still sunglass-less, was staring off into the distance.

  ‘What was that about?’ I said.

  Miranda glared at me.

  ‘Hey, I didn’t do anything,’ I said, my hands up in mock-surrender.

  ‘She’s such a snob,’ said Miranda. ‘Despite all that PC rubbish that comes out of her mouth.’

  ‘PC?’ I said. ‘Personal computer?’

  ‘No, PC as in politically correct,’ said Miranda, giving me one of her trademark why-is-my-brother-so-dumb? looks.

  ‘So what did Mom say?’ I said.

  Miranda rolled her eyes.

  ‘You don’t want to know,’ she said.

  Well, I did actually, so I dug a bit deeper.

  ‘Was it about you and Seb?’ I said.

  Miranda put her glasses back on. She sighed, and then said, ‘Yes, it was about me and Seb. Basically she wants me to cool it. She says I’m too young for a serious relationship, especially while my study is so important.’

  Which all sounded pretty reasonable to me, but I wasn’t going to say so.

  ‘That sucks,’ I said.

  ‘Sucks it does,’ said Miranda.

  It seemed to be the logical end of our conversation so I went back to my sun lounge.

  Then my phone, which was in the pocket of my shorts, beeped. Could Seb have contacted The Debt so quickly?

  Excited, I checked the message.

  Atque ita semineces partim ferventibus artus mollit aquis, partim subiecto torruit igni.

  I scrolled back to the other message I’d received, the one in Latin.

  Discipule, caro mortua es

  Which Dr Chakrabarty had translated as, ‘Schoolboy, you are dead meat’.

  This had to be Latin, too!

  I guess, with everything else that had happened to me since, I’d sort of forgotten about that dead-meat message. But now I remembered how scared I’d been when I’d received it at school. How I’d wondered whether it had been The Debt or not.

  But what did this one mean?

  Still in my Speedos, I hurried back up to my room, sat down at my desk, and copied the phrase into Google Translate.

  I selected ‘From: Latin’ and ‘To: English’ and clicked on the ‘Translate’ button. The result: half frame softens and partly boiling water partly roasted over the fire.