Amongst the Dead (26 page)

For want of anything better to do, and to keep my mind off what lay behind me, I searched the jeep thoroughly, hoping to find a key to my manacles. I found nothing that was useful — no gun and no key. There was a roughly drawn map of what I recognised as the route in and out of Roper Bar, with side tracks along which caches of food, ammunition, and petrol had doubtless been stored. There was, however, no indication of which track was which, and no way of knowing which of the lines represented our current position. There was also a log book. I didn’t linger, but returned quickly to where the driver lay.

I averted my eyes from Farrell, and tried to shoo away the flies that had settled amongst the ruins of the driver’s legs. I could see that, if he wasn’t soon to become more maggot than man, I’d have to build a smoking fire. There was no problem finding wet vegetation, but dry kindling was scarce, and I didn’t have any matches. I checked the driver’s pockets, and found in one of them an expensive-looking cigarette case — thin, gold, and beautifully tooled — that didn’t fit the bulk and demeanour of the driver at all. It was the kind of object that I would have expected Archie Warmington to have about his person. I opened it to find half-a-dozen cigarettes and a dozen-or-so matches. There was also a striking-pad machined into the back of the case. An inscription in the lid read, ‘To Clarence. Always. Always. Always. Always.’ Despite Oscar Wilde’s dictum that it is an ungentlemanly thing to read a private cigarette case, I found this strangely affecting.

Without kindling, I had no choice but to use the map and pages from the log book to create a fire that was all smoke and no flame. It was minimally effective, but when the last pages of the log book had caught there still wasn’t a sustainable blaze. I would have to sit by Clarence and swat the flies away. First, though, I opened a can with the knife and ate its contents, which were foul strips of cabbage in a sour liquid that might once have been vinegar. I sat by Clarence and prayed for rain.

The rain didn’t come but, a few hours later, with a grinding of gears and a complaining engine, a Ford V8 truck did. It stopped at the jeep, and two Nackeroos got out. I stood up and called to them. One of them was carrying a rifle, the other a pistol and, as they came towards me, both weapons were pointed at my chest. I was offended by the implication — although, on reflection I understood that the sight of a manacled, shackled man with a headless body nearby and a bloodied, wounded soldier at his feet was not, perhaps, encouraging.

The conversation that ensued was limited to a barked command that I step away from Clarence. A brief reconnoitre of the ghastly scene was so distressing for one of them that he was sick. The other one looked at me warily and with barely contained hatred, as if he held me personally responsible for the bloody mayhem. When his lips began quivering, and after he’d struck me sharply across the face, I realised that he did, in fact, hold me personally responsible. I was about to upbraid him when he stuck the barrel of his pistol in my mouth.

‘If you say one word, just one, I’ll blow your murdering, fucking brains out.’

I didn’t doubt him, and made no move to challenge the hopelessly incorrect conclusion to which he’d jumped. He ordered me into the back of the truck, and when I’d clambered up into it he followed and tied my already restrained hands to a metal strut. It wasn’t him I had to convince of my innocence, so I settled my nerves by breathing deeply and telling myself that everything would be fine as soon as the people in Katherine were presented with my testimony.

Considerable time elapsed before I saw the newly arrived Nackeroos again and, when I did, one of them — the one who’d been sick — appeared at the back of the truck with Clarence slung across his shoulders. The other jumped up into the truck and, as carefully and tenderly as he could, took Clarence and laid him down on the floor. Although moving Clarence would only have compounded his injuries, there was no other option. They placed him as far away from me as possible. When they collected Rufus Farrell’s corpse they weren’t quite so careful. They wrapped his head and foot in sacking, but had none to spare for his torso, which they deposited rather closer to me than I would have preferred. They did, however, treat his body with great respect. All their contempt they reserved for me.

The trip to Mataranka was torture for Clarence, who was bumped and jarred and jolted, first into a frenzy of screaming and then into blessed unconsciousness — blessed for both of us. I’ve never been able to hear the evidence of another person’s pain without sinking into a white-knuckled, sweaty swoon. I thought everything would be better when we reached Katherine. It wasn’t.

Chapter Ten

brocks creek

THE OFFICERS IN KATHERINE
had been expecting a jeep carrying two prisoners, each of whom had declared the other the killer of two Nackeroos — the deaths of whom had not, prior to these mutual accusations, been counted as suspicious. They were certainly not expecting a truck, in the back of which was a distressed actor, the dismembered pieces of one Nackeroo, and the crushed remains of another. From the look of dismay on the face of the officer who peered in at us, I could tell that this was going to take some sorting out.

Clarence was dealt with first, of course. He was carried on a stretcher to whatever makeshift medical facilities were available — there, I hoped, to be pumped full of morphine. Rufus Farrell was removed next, and I certainly understood the disgust and horror on the faces of the men who took him away. No one said anything to me. I was left sitting in the back of the truck, subject to the stares of passing Nackeroos. They weren’t kind or even curious stares. They were hateful and antagonistic, as if the word had been passed around that I was the killer of their comrades and, worse, that I’d mutilated one of them. I began to feel very afraid that rough justice might take precedence over the rule of law. I knew very little about military law but, as it was my only hope of release and exoneration, I had high hopes that it functioned rationally.

Eventually I was taken to a small tent inside a square of barbed wire. It contained a chair and a palliasse and nothing else. It was just high enough to stand up in, and it was intolerably hot. I did think that someone should have informed me about what was going on, as a matter of courtesy if not of law. Psychologically, it was unsettling to know nothing — which I suppose was their point. By the time someone arrived to talk to me I’d worked myself up into a mild panic, so that my demeanour must have appeared slightly maniacal.

The man who entered the tent was informally dressed. If he’d gone to any trouble at all it was to put some pants on, but nothing else.

‘I’m Lieutenant Murnane,’ he said, ‘and I’ve drawn the short straw and been told to fill you in on what’s happening.’

‘Are you a lawyer?’

‘No, mate. In civilian life I’m a tram conductor.’

‘They’ve appointed a tram conductor as my defence?’

‘I’m just here to tell you what’s up, not to defend you. Some other poor bastard’ll have to do that. Do you understand?’

My eyes must have had a wild, dissociated look in them.

‘Of course I understand,’ I snapped.

‘OK. In a little while you’ll be taken across to a tent and there’ll be three officers there who’ll ask you a whole lot of questions and decide whether or not to hold a DCM.’

‘A what?’

‘District Court Martial. In a minute some food will arrive, and by the time you’re finished they’ll be ready for you.’

The food tasted fine, and it was only afterwards that I realised that it had probably been spat in or despoiled in some other way. The tent where I was to be questioned was spacious and open on one side. The furnishings were ad hoc — a table, a few chairs, a crate, drums, and boxes. Lieutenant Murnane sat me in a chair facing the table, and left me. I was alone for only a few seconds. A guard was posted at the entrance to the tent. Three men who were neatly, formally dressed in the best of Nackeroo clobber came in and sat behind the table. After arranging some papers he’d brought with him, the man in the middle spoke first.

‘You are Private William Power?’

I nodded.

‘Please respond verbally.’

‘Yes. I am Private William Power.’

We’d got off to a bad start. My tone was faintly sarcastic, which wasn’t the effect I was after at all. Each of the three men exchanged a brief, telling glance.

‘I’m Major Purefoy. The gentleman on my right is Major Hunt, and the gentleman on my left is Captain Collins. We want you to understand, Private Power, that this is neither a court nor a court martial. We’re here to ask questions and to try to establish just what the hell is going on. It’s informal, although notes will be taken. This is the first stage in what might turn out to be quite a lengthy process.’

‘It doesn’t sound very legal to me,’ I said. Again, my state of mild panic invested my tone with an undesirable quality — this time, of churlishness.

‘This is the
NAOU
, Private Power, not the Melbourne Club. We deal with things in our own way. But I assure you that it is perfectly legitimate.’

The man who said this was Major Hunt, who was sitting closest to the open side of the tent. Grey light from the thickly overcast sky fell across his face and accentuated the pitted legacy of acne.

‘Think of this as a conversation rather than an interrogation,’ said Major Purefoy.

‘It already feels like a conversation with menaces,’ I replied.

‘All right, let’s move past this pointless sparring and proceed. My understanding is that the deaths of two of our men, Corporal Andrew Battel and Private Nicholas Ashe, were at first assumed to be the result of dengue fever in the former case and suicide in the latter.’

He waited for an acknowledgement that this much was true.

‘Yes.’

‘While you were posted on Gulnare Bluff, according to information radioed to Roper Bar by Private Rufus Farrell, you led him to believe that you had in fact killed the two men and that you were waiting for an opportunity to kill him as well.’

I was so shocked to hear this calumny spoken out loud that all I could manage was a splutter.

‘You’ll have your chance in a minute, Private Power. Now, Private Farrell’s account is very different from your own. According to the radio messages we’ve received, you claim that Private Farrell is the guilty person, and that you actually saw him strangle Corporal Battell at the platoon’s West Alligator River camp.’

He paused again.

‘Is that more or less the situation?’

‘Yes.’ I decided the details were better left until later.

‘Roper Bar HQ decided that they were unable to settle the issue and decided to send the two of you here. Understandably, they’re a little distracted by the imminent Japanese invasion, and don’t have the resources to spare on a case like this — and frankly, Private Power, neither do we. Be that as it may, here we are.’

‘The “we” doesn’t include Private Rufus Farrell though, does it?’ said Major Hunt. ‘Private Rufus Farrell is conveniently dead.’

‘I had nothing to do with Farrell’s death,’ I said between clenched teeth. My panic was rapidly metamorphosing into anger.

‘Cut himself shaving, did he?’ he sneered.

Major Purefoy put a hand on Hunt’s arm.

‘We’ll get to the circumstances of Private Farrell’s death later. Let’s just establish Private Power’s role in the earlier deaths first. Could you briefly outline for us what that role was?’

I needed to tread carefully here. I had a responsibility to Army Intelligence to keep secret their part in placing Brian and me in the
NAOU
. I was keenly aware of how territorial different sections of the military were, and I didn’t want to create unnecessary tension between Intelligence and the Observer Unit. I began calmly.

‘I am an actor, and my brother Brian, who is also now a performer, and a man named Glen Pyers, who is a magician, were sent here, via the Third Division Concert Party, as a troubadour unit, charged with bringing some entertainment to soldiers in remote, isolated areas.’

‘And what do you do?

‘I recite Shake … I recite and tell stories.’

‘I believe there is a third brother.’

‘Fulton, yes. We were sent initially to where his platoon was stationed on the West Alligator River.’

I sensed that the three investigators thought this a bit odd, as if the meeting of three brothers signified something sinister. I pre-empted them.