Sal was taken prisoner by the Americans at Messina and his war was over. He had no desire to fight or to kill anyone. He was of peasant stock, a farmer. All Salvatore wanted from life was to farm the land which was his father’s, and before that his grandfather’s, and which one day would be his. When the Americans approached, he lay down his rifle and his bandolier. Without having fired a shot for Il Duce, he raised his hands, and with scores of his compatriots he walked towards the American lines. Sal was stripped, hosed, shorn, pricked with needles, dusted and given red clothing to wear. He was fed and housed in a barbed wire compound for the next eighteen months. He wanted for nothing, except freedom to work the farm Rehabilitated, after the armistice, he was soon back on the land which seemed to be his. His father had not returned from some futile campaign of no name and little consequence.
The Bernardini farm was spread across the gently rising slopes south of Messina. Those slopes are the foothill approaches to the mountainous extensions of the mainland Apennines. About a hundred hectares of rich volcanic soil formed the property. Rainfall was somewhere between twenty and fifty inches which fell during the winter. In the summer it was hot and dry.
The farm supported beef cattle and milking cows, food crops, fruit and olive trees, and a vineyard. Life was rich, comfortable and rewarding for them all, except Sal. For Sal the war had brought with it restlessness. It was an agitation born of a realisation that, even in this idyllic isolation, some crazy persons from some far-off place had influence. They could cause people to kill his loved ones and tear his world apart. The security he knew in his childhood and early youth had been shattered. No longer could he look around and expect to see the broad, reliable shoulders of his father as he worked the fields. He was, by any reasonable presumption, dead somewhere in an unmarked grave.
On a journey one day to the market to sell the farm produce Sal heard of a migration program. A visit to the market always ended with several games of bocce, and many more than several vinos. The migration was to a land so far to the south it was on the fringe of civilisation and virtually untouched by war. It was the great southern island of Australia, the largest island on this planet. It was an island continent so large that all of Europe would fit in it and still leave room for another ten Italys.
The vinos did their work. Sal packed his bag that night. In the morning, amid the ecstatic farewells of his brothers-in-law to whom the farm would now belong, he left. He thumbed his way to the waterfront where he picked up a lift on a fishing boat across the Strait of Messina to the mainland. He hitched a ride to Naples and then on to Trieste and the Australian consulate.
CHAPTER
6
David Bramble’s first reaction was anger. “I thought Bernard was on tonight.”
“He is. He’s on his supper break.” Helen told him. “He said he’d send Miller in, I guess he couldn’t find him. I’ll need your help.”
“Humph!”
Doctor Bramble was the resident Casanova. It was reasonable, if one was to ask him, to expect any of the female nursing staff to respond positively to his sexual overtures. Some probationers may have, who knows? Helen Bell didn’t, Harry Bernard would testify to that if anyone was to ask.
Harry was on duty the night a tortured scream echoed through the midnight corridors. Guessing a patient was in trouble, he rushed into casualty in time to hear the venom in Helen’s whisper, “Do that again you bastard and I’ll report you to the board.”
Helen’s face matched the colour of her white uniform which she was holding together, it had been stripped of buttons. Harry had to look behind the half open door to find the object of her fury. It was Bramble, as white-faced as Helen, supporting himself against the wall and clutching his groin.
Harry couldn’t suppress a laugh. “Got your jollies, Doc?” Bramble pushed past him and hurried off in a Quasimodo canter. Harry turned to Helen. “Are you OK, Sister?” he asked softly as he watched the steel in her eyes turn to tears.
“Oh Harry, please forget this,” she said, her voice trembling with anger, “I don’t normally talk that way.”
“I know that.” He sat her down in an empty patients chair and fetched a glass of water, “I can probably fix it so you don’t have to work with him again. Not on your own at night. I’m on first names with the boss; we’re in the same fishing club. We often fish the reef together and have a few beers afterwards.”
“Harry I really appreciate that, but it needn’t go any further than this.” He turned to go. “And Harry...”
“Yes Sister.”
“Please call me Helen.”
The next day Harry did report the night’s events then hung around long enough to see Bramble limp into the office. Harry didn’t blame Bramble for wanting to grope Helen; he had fantasies himself along the same lines. But that’s where it should have remained, in Bramble’s fantasies at least until an invitation was offered. Later, across the cafeteria, he had given Helen an OK sign. She had flashed him a smile, but between her and Bramble there remained a cold, formal barrier.
“I suppose we havta fix these bums up Doc, seems a waste of time t’me.” Miller had been found in the laundry. “We patch ‘em up and turn ‘em out and they ‘arf kill ‘em selves. Then they’re back again the next week, f ’ more of the same. S’ bloody madness.”
“We won’t be sending this one out for a while; he’s been unconscious since he arrived. Clean him up Miller and get a bed ready in the ward,” Helen ordered. “And put his clothes in the incinerator, I’ll get him some from our second-hand stuff, later.”
Miller was another Helen liked to keep at arm’s length. In her opinion, he wasn’t far removed from the derelicts and the winos he openly scorned. “And he didn’t cause his own injuries.” she added.
“Why do you say that?” Bramble asked, he was cool on the idea. Helen’s reasoning, if it was valid, would mean extra work for him, informing the police, filling out all the paperwork and then probably going to court for as long as it took.
“It’s obvious to me. Look at him; he’s got several bad wounds to the back of his head, looks like he was repeatedly hit with something. His face is cut and bruised and he has really bad bruising to one side of his body.
He could have some cracked ribs. I couldn’t register him because he has no identification on him. Come on! Doctor, it’s obvious he was mugged. Look at his right hand, though. Seems like he got in a good one, do you know him, Miller?” She asked.
“I don’t know any winos,” he grumbled.
“Have the police been notified?” Bramble asked. “That’s your job,” she cut him off.
“OK Miller,” he sighed, “take him to x-ray and then put him in the ward.”
“Before you do that, Miller,” Helen interrupted, “there’s another victim of the night sitting out there in casualty. He’s a mess too. Clean him up before you take this one to x-ray.”
Miller grunted and left them. He did know the patient, or at least he had seen him around the waterfront and in the pubs on the Barbary Coast. Always alone and always half pissed. He was called Mac, nothing else, and he crewed on the Monterey Star. But Miller wasn’t going to let that snooty bitch know he frequented the pubs down on the Coast. As it was, she looked at him now as though he was something stuck to her shoe.
“Jesus! Is that you, Nosey?”
“Yeah, Mick.” Noel ‘Nosey’ Parker’s voice sounded like that of a person with a cleft palate as it struggled through a collapsed septum past sinus cavities filled with blood. He looked at Miller through slits on each side of a smashed and swollen nose, and all of that damage peered out through a week’s matted growth. His facial likeness would not have looked out of place in a kindergarten art show.
“What, in the name o’ Christ, ‘appened t’ ya?” Miller donned latex gloves and placed a kidney dish along with antiseptic and some first aid tools on the bench.
“Ar
rrgh! Bloody Fat Jack got us a target an’ me an’ Soamesy an’ Jacko, we follered ‘im all night, till ‘e was full as a bull’s arse goin’ uphill.”
“And…”
“Well! A funny thing ‘appened, we cornered ‘im in a lane, next to a pub near the wharves, an’ yer know what?”
Miller wasn’t about to answer the question. “C’mon get on with it,” he ordered, impatiently.
“Well, ‘e give me this,” Parker gingerly touched his face, “the cunt wasn’t pissed, ‘e was cold sober, but we got ‘im, it was that weirdo they call Mac.”
“I know, ‘e’s in the next room, ‘e’s out cold. Did ‘e ‘ave any cash?” Miller asked.
“That’s another thing, ‘e only ‘ad ten bucks on ‘im. Fat Jack fucked things up.”
“I’ll talk to ‘im.” Miller promised and started work.
“Ow! Fuck yer. Go easy.”
CHAPTER
7
“Helen?”
“Oh! Hi Harry.”
“How’s your bum?” he asked with a grin. She frowned, he added. “I did mean your derelict.”
“Still unconscious, it’s over a week now,” her voice took on a serious note, “but I’m sure he’s not a derelict. He’s got a strong body and good muscle tone and he’s deeply tanned with calloused hands. He’s worked hard; he could be a bricklayer or a builder’s labourer.”
“How about a canecutter?” he suggested.
“Who knows? I guess we’ll find out soon enough.” She sighed.
They had met on the footpath in Lake Street outside the supermarket. Helen had several plastic shopping bags filled with groceries. Harry was yet to make his purchase. He was looking for any excuse, in the oppressive heat, to postpone his usual wrestle with a maverick supermarket trolley. What better excuse than a chance to spend time with Helen.
“Feel like a beer?” He asked.
“That’s exactly what I do feel like, Harry.” He took her parcels and together they walked into Hides air-conditioned lounge and seated themselves at a table.
“Two beers, Love.” He signalled the barmaid.
“Mine’s a shandy, Harry.”
“One with a dash, Love.”
He returned with the beers and sat down. He really liked this woman but as yet he hadn’t made a move on her, he was a bit nervous about asking.
He was frightened of rejection if he moved too fast, at least for the present he could live in hope and perhaps one day…
“A penny for them, Harry.”
“I’m sorry, I was thinking…,” and suddenly it occurred to him that he had an angle, “What are you doing tonight, Helen?”
“I’ll probably curl up in front of the telly. Why?”
“Dad’s having some friends over for dinner, I try to get to all of his do’s, he has them catered, the old fox. He thinks no one’s wise to him. He likes me to be there but sometimes I can’t make it. Would you like to come? I’d like you to. Besides, Dad knows most of the cane cutters, from Rocky to the Daintree; we may be able to talk him into coming to town and looking at your bum.” He grinned and held his breath.
She frowned again but the curl of her lip caused his pulse to quicken. “Sure Harry, I’d love to,” she said softly.
He couldn’t believe his luck. “I’ll pick you up at six thirt… no, five thirty. Better still, we could go now. It’s a long way, it’s up near Mossman.” “Five thirty will do,” she smiled, “but if he caters these dinners won’t I be intruding?”
“No. His only enjoyment in life now, I think,” Harry added with a grin, “is good food and wine. He orders for twice the number and dines on the leftovers for the rest of the week.”
CHAPTER
8
“Dad, this is Helen. Helen, meet Sal...”
Sal wasn’t on deck when the SS ROMA was piloted between the headlands. He’d been semi-conscious since the ship elbowed its way through the Suez onto the Red Sea and across the Gulf of Aden to the Indian Ocean. There is no doubt even today, in Sal’s mind, had he known of the ordeal which faced him he would have still been ploughing those gently sloping hills south of Messina. The French call it mal-de-mer, the people in this new country call it ‘burleying the fish’. The farmer in Sal had no word for it but magically, upon entering calm water, it disappears.
At the point where there was once a net stretching across Sydney Harbour, to prevent the likes of Sal entering during the war years, he recovered. In his weakened state he struggled, from somewhere down near the engine room, up and out into a brilliant Sydney morning. His ordeal forgotten as the ship was tugged up a peaceful and beautiful harbour and shunted into Woolloomooloo dock. It was early January 1951 on a clear, and cloudless Sydney midsummer day.
Sal was stripped, showered, shorn, dusted and pricked with needles. He was issued with clothing and footwear and then trucked south where he was housed in a temporary looking wooden building and fed. Except for the missing barbed wire it seemed to him a bit like Messina in forty-three. The building was called the barracks and the town was Cooma on the New South Wales side of the Snowy Mountains. He was kept at the barracks just long enough for another medical examination which took all of five minutes. He felt the icy circle of a stethoscope on his chest and across his back. A hand cupped his testicles while he coughed. The wriggling middle finger of the same gloved hand found its way up his anus. An empty cup puzzled him until he saw others urinating in theirs and tip-toeing through their overflow.
A slap on the shoulder was accompanied by a “Next please”.
Cooma was the headquarters of the Snowy Mountains Hydro-electric Authority. This was the organisation given the colossal task of turning the mighty Snowy River back on itself, one hundred and eighty degrees.
The source of the Snowy River is the Snowy Mountains, the river flows southward and slightly east through Orbost. It cuts the Prince’s Highway there and, as a raging torrent, enters Bass Strait at a town called Marlo. There it battles and overcomes the surf on a sandbar which stretches across its mouth. It is there where many a local fishing boat has been pounded to flotsam.
The plan was to link the Snowy with the Murray which rose on the western side of the mountains. This feat was to be achieved by constructing a series of dams and reservoirs by tunnelling through the mountains. When combined, the force of the two rivers would turn the massive turbines to generate thousands of megawatts of electrical power. The waters of these two rivers would also help to irrigate the hinterlands of southern New South Wales and north-western Victoria.
The Murray is one of the main rivers in Australia. It rises near Mount Kosciusko which, at twenty-two-hundred-metres, is Australia’s highest peak. The river flows north-west from the Snowies to form a border between New South Wales and Victoria. At Morgan in South Australia it hangs a left through Lake Alexandria and emerges in Encounter Bay on the eastern end of the Great Australian Bight. Two other great rivers, the Darling and the Murrumbidgee are tributaries of the Murray and along with the Tumut they all combine to forge a massive river system in that region.
This great vision, this dream, was brought to fruition in 1974 on the strength and sweat of displaced persons from all parts of the world. Former enemies and friends left their hatreds and their alliances overseas. They rubbed shoulders and took pride in the toil which earned a world-wide respect for their achievements.
And they formed bonds which would last through their lifetimes.
Sal didn’t see the project through to the very end, but he did give it ten long years of his young life which he spent in two states, sober and drunk. He eventually grew tired of a procession of years which went through seasons of searing heat to bitter, frozen cold. With his battered suitcase and his then significant bank account he headed north up the east coast looking for somewhere to settle.
Wollongong was a comfortable city but when the breeze was from the so
uth-west the place could become intolerable. It was then that the pollution from Port Kembla’s industrial lungs, which seemed to breathe most deeply in the darkest hours of the night, covered the city. The thick industrial smog could become trapped between the sheer mountainous escarpment which prevented urban sprawl to the west, the vehicular pressure front that brought the pollution there, and an atmospheric barrier of low cloud. With this combination of influences Wollongong was not a place Sal liked to be.
Sydney was too big. Port Kembla and Newcastle a bit too polluted. Especially for a Sicilian – one lately of the Snowies where the air was so crystal clear and crisp at night he could read his newspaper by starlight.
The Gold Coast was beautiful but expensive and he was soon out on the road and heading north again. He browsed through Brisbane and up the Queensland coast, and he arrived in Cairns twelve months to the day after leaving the Snowy.
His bank account, which was really quite large at the outset of his travels, was still very healthy. But he felt a certain guilt because no deposits had been made for a whole year and on his trek north he had made many withdrawals. He had to get a job.
After a tour of the Cairns factories and shops and a tentative enquiry on the waterfront drew blanks, he walked into the government employment agency and shyly approached the counter. The clerk handed him a form without looking at him. “Fill this in and get in the line,” he said automatically, still studying the racing guide under the counter. When Sal reached the head of the queue a pimple-faced girl snatched his form from his hand and recited, “Thank you. This will be processed and if you qualify you can come back in two weeks for your money.”
“Whata money?” Sal asked. “I comma for job.”
She met his eyes; she was a little surprised and taken aback. With a shrug of her shoulders she directed him back to the racing enthusiast.
“Yeah?” he asked.
The Cooktown Grave Page 3