The Invaders

Rick Wilkinson

Description

Set in northern Australia's Victoria River region, this dramatic tale interweaves three eraas.

In 1839 British explorer John Lort Stokes makes an unexpected discovery when sinking water wells near the river.

In 1942 Nackeroo corporal, Douglas Ashmore is guarding the region against perceived Japanese invasion when a radio broadcast reveals his location. 'Ash' and Aboriginal guide Gabriel hunt for a suspected enemy collaborator.

In 1987 petroleum geologist Bradley Dixon puzzles over the loan of Stokes' journal from company boss Reginald Able. At the rig Brad encounters Aboriginal activist Gabriel Fitzmaurice, who suspects Able of corporate sleight-of-hand.

After a drilling accident Brad meets and is attracted to feisty nurse and committed environmentalist, Karen Frost, gradually becoming aware of deep secrets joining Ash, now a bush loner, to Karen's past. In a tension-filled atmosphere of crashing global financial markets and oppressive humidity heralding the north Australian Wet, the links between Stokes' diary entries, the rig program and the Victoria River wartime emergency are laid bare, setting an ultimate test for Brad and Karen's relationship.


"A ripping yarn of interlinked endeavour, intrigue, high drama and repentance spanning three epochs in remote and beguiling northern Australia." - Barry FitzGerald, Resources Columnist

Sujets

• Policier & Thriller
• Policier
• Thrillers
• Historical
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Brolga Publishing
• Date de parution: 01 mai 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780645815801
• Langue: English

Extrait

Testimonials for The Invaders
“Rick Wilkinson knows how to keep readers turning the pages. With deft story-telling he weaves three narratives together and takes us into the resources industry and into areas of Australia’s defences during WW11 that are rarely explored in fiction. The Invaders pulls off the difficult trick of being both entertaining and informative.”
— Robert Gott, crime novelist
“When do explorers become regarded as ‘The Invaders’? This theme intrigued me personally on reading this impressive novel by Rick Wilkinson. Rick evokes the beauty — and lurking menace — of a remote part of Australia, steeped in mystery. He entwines indigenous traditions with the first thrust of European scientific exploration, the very real threat of armed invasion in WW2 and the need to balance humanity’s need for vital resources against preservation of the land. Emerging from this complex interplay of cultures and characters is that even the best intentioned of people are prone to prejudices that can lead to tragic consequences. Throw in the 1987 stock market crash – here is a tale that will keep you engrossed up to its denouement. Highly recommended.”
—Reg Nelson, Vintage Energy
“Wilkinson cleverly interweaves sub-plots that move powerfully backward and forward in time. Some of the characters nimbly spill across those boundaries. It is a story that does not rely on popular history. Nor does it depend on established formulas. It is an engaging read for casual observers of history because it covers so many areas that are not well known: as such reader interest is piqued. One for any bookshelf.”
— Christopher Beck, Media Dynamics
“Set in the Northern Territory, The Invaders is a Tour de Force where damaged individuals cannot escape a past that embraces a breathtakingly vivid history from the voyage of the Beagle to the Japanese threat in WWII to oil exploration in the eighties.”
— Kerry Cue, author, journalist, mathematician
“Rick Wilkinson is a worthy successor to Ion Idriess, the adventurous author of tales from Australia’s wild deep north. Rick’s tragic story is informed by his vast personal knowledge of the geography and geology of the region, the petroleum exploration industry and of historical events.”
— Noel Bushnell, veteran journalist, The Traveller blogger
“Rick Wilkinson’s The Invaders is a ripping yarn of interlinked endeavour, intrigue, high drama and repentance spanning three epochs in remote and beguiling northern Australia — early British exploration, the invasion threat during World War II, and the modern-day exploitation of natural resources. The constant throughout is the rise of Aboriginal engagement, understanding and more latterly, empowerment.”
— Barry FitzGerald, Resources Columnist

Published by Brolga Publishing Pty Ltd
ABN 46 063 962 443
PO Box 452
Torquay Victoria 3228
Australia
email: [e-mail]
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior permission from the publisher.
Copyright © 2022 Rick Wilkinson
National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication data
Rick Wilkinson, author.
ISBN: 9780648697084 (paperback)
ISBN: 9780645815801 (ebook)

Printed in Australia
Cover design and typeset by WorkingType Studio

BE PUBLISHED
Publish through a successful publisher
National Distribution to Australia & New Zealand
International Distribution to the United Kingdom
Other books by Rick Wilkinson
Resources industries:
A Thirst For Burning—The story of Australia’s oil industry
Speaking of Oil & Gas—Introducing the petroleum industry
Rocks to Riches—The story of Australia’s national geological survey
Well, Well, Well—Behind Australia’s wildcat names
Where God Never Trod—Australia’s oil explorers across two centuries
Once Upon a Wildcat—Images from Australia’s petroleum story
The Oil Shale Initiative—Ian McFarlane’s quest to develop a new energy source for Australia
Knights, Knaves & Dragons—50 years inside APPEA and Australia’s oil and gas politics
Twists in the Sand — 50 years in the turbulent life of Beach Energy
General:
The Bellarine…via Rambler’s Road—People and stories of the Bellarine Peninsula
Return of the Phasmid — Australia’s rarest insect fights back from the brink of extinction
For children:
The Stones of Fire series (fiction)
Book 1: The Ancient Secret
Book 2: Teeth of the Storm
Incredible Journeys—Adventures into the unknown (non-fiction)
Endangered! Working to save animals at risk (non-fiction)
It’s True! Animals are electrifying (non-fiction)
Prologue
Item 1:
Archives: Timber Creek Police Station Museum, Northern Territory
Police incident report No.106, dated 14 June 1947
Thomas ‘Nugget’ Reardon, stockman on Bradshaw/Coolibah Station, Victoria River District, stated that while looking for stray cattle in the far north of the run early in the month, he discovered wreckage scattered along a beach opposite Quoin Island near the mouth of the Victoria River. The debris appeared to Reardon to be from a timber vessel and included part of a mast as well as a fragment of a transom on which he could discern the letters ‘e d a’. Reardon reported the find to the Bradshaw/Coolibah Station manager who passed it on to Sergeant Jeffries of the Timber Creek constabulary. Sgt. Jeffries subsequently visited the site and confirmed the report.
No vessels have been reported missing in the region recently. Investigators think the wreckage is older and may have been dislodged from under the reef shelf in Quoin Island passage by cyclone Winifred and accompanying tidal surge that occurred in February this year. This hypothesis is backed by the Bureau of Meteorology, Darwin.
A search of the records raises the possibility the wreckage is from the lugger Frieda which vanished without trace from its mooring at the Lutheran mission on the Fitzmaurice River in January 1943 along with the mission superintendent Pastor Hans Müller. Müller, an Australian of German birth, was briefly interned under the provisions of the National Security Act in 1940, but judged no threat and allowed back to his work at the Fitzmaurice Mission. Despite his release, his presence in the region was linked to rumours of collaboration with Japanese forces poised to invade the Australian mainland. Pastor Müller’s disappearance gave strength to the rumours. His body was never found and the disappearance remains unresolved.
Signed: George Jeffries (Sgt, Timber Creek Constabulary)
Item 2:
Article from the Territory News , Saturday 5 December 1987
Who left the 303?
Mystery surrounds the ownership of a .303 rifle left on the steps of the Timber Creek police station this week. The weapon was found by the duty officer when he arrived for his shift early on Monday morning. There was no note and nothing to indicate why it had been left deliberately unattended. The rifle was not loaded, but residue in the barrel suggests it had been fired recently.
A police spokesman said markings on the rifle identified it as a Lithgow SMLE No.1 MkIII* (short magazine Lee-Enfield made by the Lithgow Small Arms Factory in New South Wales) universally known as a 303 and used by Australian troops during World War 2.
Of the serial number, only the letter D, followed by the numbers 79 were legible. Firearms experts say the ‘D’ signifies it was manufactured in late 1941 or 1942, but a search of army records has failed to trace its precise provenance. Police are appealing for anyone with information about the weapon to come forward.
(J.L. Stokes – Journal entry 10 November 1839)
… We were very cautious in choosing our sleeping berth for the night, to avoid a surprise during the dark; we therefore selected a friendly hollow beneath the stem of a straggling and drooping old gum tree, large enough to conceal the whole party, ….
Chapter 1
October 1987
B radley Dixon flinched at the sudden loud reports, two in quick succession that seemed to be just outside his room.
Gun shots? Bloody hell! Surely no one would fire a gun so near the camp.
Putting the journal down, he rose from the bed and opened his door a chink to listen. The familiar background rumble of the drilling rig filled the night, but nothing seemed amiss. He stepped onto the boardwalk skirting the line of Atco accommodation huts and looked about, squinting in the glare of the floodlights.
A tousled head and bare torso appeared in the hut doorway two along. Ethan Williams tweezered sleep from his eyes with thumb and forefinger. ‘You hear it too? What’s goin’ on?’ His voice husky.
Brad shrugged. ‘Nothing at the rig anyway. Sounded like shots out in the scrub. Roo shooters, station hands maybe?’
Williams grunted and shook his head. ‘No panic then.’ He glanced briefly at the derrick dominating the brightly lit camp before retreating into his room without further comment.
‘Surly bastard,’ Brad muttered at the closed door.
The drilling supervisor had been on the plane from Melbourne with Brad. He hadn’t said much then either, apart from the fact that he’d been up earlier to examine the well site before the rig moved in. The rest of the flight Williams divided between reading James Michener’s Texas and snoring in rasp-like bursts, his head pressed into a pillow against the window.
Brad, a new chum to the Bonaparte Basin, would have appreciated a bit more local background to the Stokes-1 wildcat. As a geological contractor he was used to well-sitting jobs at short notice, but this one had been exceptionally swift. The previous geo had been evacuated with acute appendicitis. Able Exploration was a private company—a one-man band with no staff geologists.
Brad moved back to his own doorway, then changed his mind. Stokes’ journal lay open on his bed, but a coffee seemed a better plan. He sauntered along the boardwalk towards the mess