Amongst the Dead (22 page)

It seems extraordinary, given that my life may well have been in danger, that one moment I was reflecting on the possibility of changing my public performances from pure Shakespeare to enacting tales from Shakespeare, and the next I was so soundly asleep that the gunshot, when it came, initially formed part of an elaborate dream, the details of which I don’t remember.

It was the second shot that woke me. In a panic that didn’t run entirely out of control on account of the sharp pain in my neck, I crawled out from under the cheesecloth into the mud. I could see Brian flailing under his, and gave silent thanks that my injury made flailing impossible. It was raining slightly, but the wind was strong, and the general noise of trees and shrubs being whipped by it exacerbated the fear that was running riot through my body. Brian was soon beside me, along with Glen. The darkness was so complete that I couldn’t see beyond a few feet. If Rufus Farrell was standing a short distance away with a gun pointed at me, I wouldn’t have known; and I was too unnerved to make the logical assumption that if I couldn’t see him, he couldn’t see me either. We instinctively stayed close to the ground and remained silent. A word was as good as a flare in revealing where we were. Somewhere off to the right, where the Nackeroos slept, there was a panicked cry. At first it was a yowl of terror, and then it coalesced into words.

‘They’re here! They’re here! The fucking Japs!’

Another shot was fired, and another cry went up. I felt my guts turn to water. So this was it? We’d been surprised in our sleep. The Nackeroos on watch must have been killed already, otherwise they would have put up some resistance, and there would have been more gunfire to alert us. Had they had their throats slit by an advance party? Still we didn’t move. I could hear Brian panting. In the darkness there was the sound of running feet and a voice called, ‘Hold him down! Hold him down!’ An incoherent roar came from someone’s mouth, followed by a gunshot and a yelp of pain. It was Glen who first surmised what was happening, and he leapt to his feet and disappeared in the direction of the commotion. Whimpering reached us, and the low murmur of several people talking. Glen returned quickly.

‘The bloke named Baxter’s gone troppo.’

We’d been introduced to this man, but I’d only seen his face briefly, once. He was the silent one who’d come with us across the mudflats.

‘He thought he saw a Jap in the camp. The silly bastard’s gone and shot himself in the foot.’

We crossed to where Baxter lay on the ground, writhing in agony. Rufus Farrell was there, and two of the Nackeroos. One must have remained on watch, and the other in the sig hut.

‘He’s been edgy for days now,’ said one of them. ‘We should’ve had him taken out.’

‘He could’ve killed me,’ Rufus said. ‘That first shot missed me by a bee’s dick.’

‘So it was you he saw moving around,’ I said. ‘What were you doing?’

I knew what he’d been doing. He’d been heading for my bed — probably knife in hand, or maybe he’d intended to strangle me, just as he’d strangled Battell.

‘I was going to the dunny,’ Farrell said.

Baxter moaned. I knelt beside him and told him that he was all right, that he’d hurt his foot, but that he wasn’t badly injured. This didn’t seem to calm him down. Whatever light there was gathered in the wild whites of his eyes, and he glared at me as if I were an object of immense horror.

‘Jap cunt!’ he shrieked, and spat at me. It took all of us to restrain him after that. He jerked and pushed and convulsed until exhaustion and loss of blood calmed him. By then, dawn was slowly turning the darkness into a pellucid grey.

‘Is there any morphine?’ I asked.

‘Yes, mate,’ one of them said sarcastically, ‘and the nurses’ quarters are just through the scrub there.’

I didn’t take this personally. We were all shaken by what had just happened. I reminded myself that I was the oldest person there by a long way, and I had an obligation to assert some authority over this mess. No one else seemed capable of doing anything practical.

‘We need to see how much damage he’s done, and we need to stop the bleeding. There must be a first-aid kit here.’

In the growing light I saw that no one was wearing his hat, and for the first time I got a decent look at these Nackeroos. The sarcastic young man, who nodded when I mentioned the first-aid kit, looked about twelve years old, although he must have been at least twenty-one. His straw-coloured hair was plastered to his skull, and needed cutting. Manhood was creeping into his brown eyes before appearing anywhere else on his face.

‘Get it!’ I said fiercely, and he obeyed without demur. The other Nackeroo was probably the same age as the boy soldier, but he’d matured more rapidly. His cheeks and chin were dark with stubble.

‘Put your knees on his shoulders and, Glen, I’d be obliged if you sat on his chest. Brian, grab his good leg. I’m going to take his boot off.’

The blood drained from Glen’s face, and I thought he was going to faint.

‘Don’t you dare faint,’ I said. ‘I need you to hold him down.’

He straddled Baxter and sat with his back to me.

‘No. The other way. I want you to lean forward and press down on his thighs. When I take his boot off he’s not going to like it.’

‘I’m not going to like it, either.’

‘Close your eyes and try not to be distracted by his screams. His legs need to be held still.’

Baxter’s boot wasn’t going to come off easily. As soon as I’d undone the laces, it became apparent that the army had issued him with a size that was too small for his feet; he must have suffered awful blisters while his feet gradually stretched the leather to accommodate them. My first attempt to remove the boot resulted in a violent and not unreasonable reaction to the agony it caused. I suspected that the bones at the top of the foot had been broken. There was nothing for it but to plough on, and to pay no heed to Baxter’s appalling cries of pain.

I wrestled and worked the boot away from his shattered foot. When it finally came, Baxter’s cries intensified as if the leather had somehow been containing the worst of the injury. His sock, crusted with mud and blood, had almost become one with his flesh. He mustn’t have changed his socks since his posting at Gulnare Bluff had begun. As I peeled the wool away, I still couldn’t see how much damage had been done. I needed water. The young Nackeroo had by this time returned with the first-aid kit, and I sent him away to fetch a can of clean water. I had no idea what I was doing or even what needed doing. The only thing I could think to do was wash the wound, sprinkle disinfectant powder into it, if there was any, and bind it with a bandage.

When the water arrived I sponged the foot as gently as I could, trying not to press down around the point of the bullet’s entry. It looked a mess. I thought it might have been a nice clean hole. Whatever ammunition he’d used had blasted an ugly entry wound and an even uglier exit wound. A sprinkle of powder and a length of bandage weren’t going to do much for Baxter. It was better than nothing, though, so I opened the battered first-aid tin, hoping to find something I might use. The only thing in it was a bandage that was black with mould, and the pointless barrel of a needle-less syringe. There wasn’t even any Aspro. I looked at Brian.

‘It’s a pity that dress isn’t here,’ he said. ‘We could’ve used strips of that.’

Baxter had quietened down, and he began to slip in and out of consciousness.

‘Can I get up?’ Glen asked. I noticed that his eyes were tightly shut, and I imagined that they been shut throughout Baxter’s ordeal.

‘We have to cover the wound,’ I said. ‘It’s going to be tough enough stopping flies from blowing it without making it easy for them.’

‘Maybe it’ll keep raining,’ Glen said weakly.

‘Maybe he’s got a clean pair of underpants in his kit,’ said the older-looking Nackeroo.

‘Did you see the state of his socks?’ I replied. ‘I really don’t think this bloke’s underpants should be anywhere near an open wound.’

Brian suggested we find a clean-ish piece of cheesecloth from his bedding and cut it up. He did so, and washed it, even though it was already sopping wet. At least it made us feel as if we were doing something vaguely related to antisepsis.

Baxter lay almost motionless, moaning in the most unearthly and disconcerting fashion. I was sympathetic, but I wanted desperately for him to shut up.

Rufus Farrell had made himself scarce. There was no reason for him to remain with Baxter or with us, but I knew that he’d absented himself in order to avoid further questions about his movements — movements that had led to Baxter’s dreadful injury and to the inadvertent saving of my life.

‘Someone needs to sit with him,’ I said, and addressed the young man who’d fetched the first-aid kit. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Smith,’ he said. ‘John Smith.’

‘Unusual name. You must get people asking you to spell it all the time. You sit with him, John, and talk to him. Keep reassuring him that he’ll be all right, and keep the flies off his foot.’

Roper Bar had been radioed about Baxter, and the decision was made to change the personnel at Gulnare Bluff one day early.
The Hurricane
would arrive that afternoon, with five fresh Nackeroos. Rufus Farrell was to remain as the sixth. When they arrived we’d head back, somehow carrying Baxter with us. To this end we improvised a stretcher, using thin bush-timbers and the remains of his cheesecloth bed covering. It was strong enough to support his weight and, with a man on each of the four pole ends, we thought it wouldn’t be too onerous transporting him across the sucking mud. It wasn’t going to be easy, but we agreed we could manage it. There was, in any case, no choice.

Rufus Farrell took up his position in the sig hut while the others took turns to maintain the watch and gather their equipment ready for departure. Glen, for whom the whole Baxter incident had been surprisingly traumatic (despite his protestations, I was certain he was phobic about the sight of blood), volunteered to watch the horizon until the relief party arrived. Proximity to Baxter made him queasy. This allowed Brian and me the luxury of uninterrupted conversation.

‘It’s Farrell,’ I announced. ‘He took the bait, no doubt about it. If Baxter hadn’t started shooting at him, I’d be a dead man.’

‘I wasn’t asleep, Will. I’d have stopped him. Were you asleep?’

‘It isn’t strictly relevant whether I was asleep or awake. The point is that Farrell was on his way to try to silence me.’

Brian must have sensed that I was in no mood to brook disagreement because he didn’t offer an alternative explanation for Farrell’s movements. Even so, just in case he was thinking of an alternative, I added firmly, ‘The dunny story doesn’t wash. Where were the smoking leaves he’d need? Nowhere.’

‘That’s true. I hadn’t thought of that.’

‘So now we have a bit of a problem. Farrell is going to stay here with five unsuspecting Nackeroos. He’s already killed five. What’s five more?’

‘We have to warn them.’

I thought about that for a moment, and knew how ridiculous it would sound to make such an extraordinary accusation against a Nackeroo to members of his own unit — it would be dismissed out of hand. Otherwise, in the unlikely event that they believed us, I couldn’t see them waiting for the law to take its course.

‘However we feel about this,’ I said, ‘when you get right down to it, we don’t actually have any evidence that would stand up in a court of law or a court martial. Our certainty counts for nothing. All we can do is try to convince someone with influence, like Archie Warmington, that Rufus Farrell needs to be arrested and investigated.’

‘So we just leave him here?’

‘I don’t think he’ll try anything. He knows now that I’m on to him.’

‘Should we at least tell Glen?’

‘Absolutely not — not till we’re back at Roper Bar anyway. I don’t want him going off half-cocked here and confronting Farrell. This has to be managed delicately. With Archie’s help, we should be able to find out about the previous deaths and maybe collect some compelling evidence. Without it, we’re sunk. All Farrell has to do is deny it.’

The essential truth of this struck me so forcefully that I felt a surge of something like despair. What kind of evidence could we gather?

‘This isn’t going to be easy,’ I said. ‘The trail of earlier deaths is well and truly cold, and Farrell’s been clever. Unless someone saw him, I’m not sure how to nail him.’

‘You saw him kill Andrew Battell.’

‘I saw him after Battell was dead. I didn’t actually see him strangle him, and I couldn’t swear under oath that the figure was Farrell. Of course it was Farrell; we know that, but a barrister could tear my testimony to pieces in minutes.’

‘It’s a relief it’s not Fulton, at any rate. I reckon we should bring him in on this. He might know something, and not know how important it is.’

Brian was right. The person most likely to provide good information about whatever ties there were between Ashe, Battell, and Farrell — and probably the other three — was Fulton. Now eliminated as a suspect, he’d been elevated to the status of a witness. He may well have noticed, or overheard, something that seemed obscure and meaningless until he reconsidered it in the light of these deaths. Any good private-inquiry agent will tell you that the solution to a crime is frequently to be found in an insignificant, easy-to-overlook detail.