Maralinga

by Judy Nunn

  ‘It may be wrong, but it’s not your fault.’

  Pete’s angry tirade came to a halt. He hadn’t yet allowed himself time to feel guilty, but the kid, of course, was spot on. The military patrol officers under his guidance should have discovered the family well before there’d been any risk of exposure.

  Daniel continued in earnest. ‘You do everything that’s humanly possible, Pete. Your men can’t cover every inch of this terrain.’

  ‘They’d hardly have needed to cover every inch in this case.’ There was an unpleasantly sarcastic edge to Pete’s reply. ‘The family was travelling slowly, with children and a pregnant woman – they must have been in the vicinity for days.’

  ‘You said yourself they have a talent for making themselves invisible.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. I did. And it’s true. Which makes it their own bloody fault really, doesn’t it.’ He shrugged. ‘Ah well, there’s bugger all I can do about it now.’ He stood and tipped his tea out onto the ground. ‘I need a drink,’ he said, and he went into the donga to fill his mug from one of the many bottles of whisky he kept stashed away.

  Once again, Daniel was left bewildered. Pete, with his mood swings from passion to indifference in a matter of seconds, remained a puzzling man. Much as Daniel had grown to admire him, he found Petraeus Mitchell possibly the most complicated person he’d ever met.

  In truth, Petraeus Mitchell was not complicated. He was angry. He’d been angry throughout his entire life. He’d been angry that his father, after fighting in the Boer War, had re-enlisted fifteen years later and died at the Somme. Hadn’t one war been enough for the man? He’d been angry that the mother he’d adored, having been transplanted from her homeland and left with five children, had been literally worked to death by the age of forty-three.

  But it was the army that had put the final seal on Pete’s anger, turning it from the frustration and regret of his youth to a true bitterness. Many of those who had served as coast watchers during the war and had lived to tell the tale had been left similarly disenchanted. For the job of a coast watcher was a dangerous and lonely one, with little or no backup. It was a job where a man, if discovered, found himself at the sole mercy of an enemy known to be merciless. The coast watcher was not looked after by his own. The fact that Pete had survived such a job for three long years had been nothing short of miraculous, but his time in the army had left him with a cynical view of the world. Look after number one had become his creed. If you don’t, no-one else will, because no-one else cares. And why the bloody hell should they?

  It wasn’t a view he had held in the past. Despite the anger of his youth, he had never felt a disregard for others. To the contrary, the very anger of his youth had produced a passion to learn, to become the person his mother would have wished him to be.

  Johanna Mitchell had been an inspiration to her youngest child. A highly intelligent woman and a skilled teacher, she’d encouraged him to mingle with the children of the black families who’d regularly visited their remote property. She’d instilled in him the lessons she’d learnt from her own parents, who had fought against the injustices wrought upon the South African native. There was much to be learnt from those who were different, she’d told her son, and the Aboriginal culture was the oldest in existence.

  Pete had formed friendships with many of the young Unmatjera, a sub-group of the central desert people who’d inhabited the country near his home, and by the time he was twelve he’d spoken fluent Arrernte. When he was fifteen, his mother had encouraged him to sit for the GAE – the South Australian Government’s Ability Exams – an educational scheme that was shortly to be discontinued due to the Depression. The boy had been granted a scholarship and fresh doors had opened for him. From that moment on, Pete had known the path he wished to follow.

  Johanna Mitchell, sadly, had not lived to see her youngest son further his studies of the Aboriginal culture they had both come to hold in such high regard. She had died shortly before his sixteenth birthday. She never saw him gain his degree in anthropology. She wasn’t there to share in his achievements as he worked alongside the young T.G.H. Strehlow, already recognised as one of the foremost authorities on the desert people of Australia. She was never to witness the similar form of recognition afforded her son in the ensuing years. But Johanna Mitchell had, nonetheless, been with him on every single step of his journey. That is, until the army had claimed him.

  Following his experiences in New Guinea, even the influence that had governed his life from beyond the grave had become a source of annoyance to Pete. What was the point in trying to fulfil his mother’s dreams? The woman was dead, for God’s sake! And what purpose did her dreams serve anyway? He was of no value to the Aboriginal people; he was just a puppet in a chain of bureaucracy. So why bother caring? No-one else did. Anger continued to devour Petraeus Mitchell.

  Pete reappeared with his mug of whisky and no further mention was made of the Aboriginal family, Daniel wisely avoiding the topic. If Pete wished to talk, then he would, although he may have dismissed the subject from his mind altogether – it was difficult to tell. He was surly, but then that didn’t really mean much. Pete was often surly.

  Early the following morning, when Daniel awoke, Pete was nowhere to be seen. Then, fifteen minutes later, he came back from the ablutions block clean-shaven.

  ‘Very smart,’ Daniel said amiably, although he always found Pete a little odd without his stubble. Receiving only a grunt by way of reply, he slung his towel around his neck, grabbed his toiletry kit and set off for the ablutions block himself.

  When he returned to the donga, Pete was nowhere to be seen and, as he wasn’t around at breakfast, Daniel presumed he’d left early in his patrol truck. It came as a surprise, therefore, to find the FJ Holden parked near the fettlers’ cottages.

  ‘That’s Pete’s utility,’ Daniel said to Gideon as he pulled the Land Rover up beside the corrugated-iron shed and stock-water tank that constituted Watson railway station. Behind them, in a swirl of dust, the two Bedford trucks came to a halt, and Gideon’s team started lifting out tarpaulins and ropes in readiness for loading and securing the crates of fresh supplies that would shortly arrive by rail from Adelaide.

  Barely 200 yards from the siding stood the row of six asbestos-built houses with corrugated-iron roofs, supplied by the railroad as married men’s quarters for the fettlers employed to service the Trans-Australian Railway line. Forlorn, shabby and dilapidated, the houses were nonetheless the height of sophistication compared to the many rough-and-tumble fettlers’ camps dotted along the track at other remote sidings.

  ‘What’s he doing here?’ Daniel was puzzled. Pete’s utility was parked directly outside the second of the fettlers’ houses. But what business could he possibly have with the fettlers?

  The question was rhetorical and Daniel expected no answer, but beside him Gideon smirked knowingly.

  ‘Well, good old Pete knows how to while away the time, doesn’t he? Half his luck, I say.’

  Again, Daniel was puzzled. Why would Pete be whiling away the time? The Marcoo test was only a few days away. Surely he should be out in his patrol truck.

  ‘Wouldn’t mind being in his shoes,’ Gideon said with a touch of genuine envy. ‘She’s quite a looker. Trouble though – he’s asking for it in my opinion.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  But Gideon appeared not to have heard. ‘He’s being rather blatant, I must say. Usually he parks closer to the siding so it looks as if he’s waiting for the train, but this time he’s right outside her house. Bold.’ Gideon obviously had his reservations about the wisdom of such a move.

  ‘Are you telling me Pete’s having an affair?’

  They looked at each other, both equally surprised.

  ‘I assumed you knew. He’s been having a fling with the wife of one of the fettlers for months.’

  Gideon wondered now why he had assumed Daniel knew. It was true the two men shared a donga and were friends of sorts, but D
aniel was naive and Pete was secretive. There was no reason to believe that Daniel would guess or that Pete would tell. Oh well, too bad, he thought, the cat was well and truly out of the bag now so he might as well fill Dan in on the details. It may even prove to Pete’s advantage. Young Dan may be the one person capable of talking sense into the man. Pete Mitchell was playing a dangerous game.

  ‘The wife has an arrangement with the ganger,’ he explained. ‘She gives the chap a bottle of whisky – provided by Pete, of course – and Tommo, the ganger, sends her husband on one of the long trips down the track, which means he has to camp out. Sometimes he doesn’t get home for days – it’s an excellent set-up.’

  Daniel regarded Gideon with suspicion. How could he possibly know this? Pete wouldn’t have told him. Pete was one of the few who didn’t particularly like Gideon Melbray – he found him a little too flashy.

  But Gideon wasn’t giving away any personal secrets. ‘It’s true, whether you believe it or not.’ He shrugged carelessly. ‘Haven’t you ever wondered about the once-a-week shave? Why doesn’t the man grow a beard?’

  Daniel’s expression was one of utter bemusement.

  ‘Ada’s the reason for the shave,’ Gideon said. ‘Ada Lampton.’

  He remembered his own encounter with the woman. ‘You wouldn’t even need to bring a bottle of whisky, Gideon,’ she’d said. ‘There are other ways I can get around Tommo.’ He could well imagine there would be. ‘Come on, lover boy,’ she’d said, snaking her hips at him brazenly right out there in the open as the men unloaded the supplies from the train. ‘I’ve never had anyone as beautiful as you.’ But Gideon had resisted the advances of Ada Lampton with ease. Enticing though she was, she was far too dangerous. Ada was the sort who liked to cause trouble. Normally, her very danger would have added to her appeal in Gideon’s eyes, but given the current circumstances she was off limits. He was on a job and under strict orders. Gideon had no intention of disobeying Harold Dartleigh.

  Across the long, flat desert plain, where the railway track disappeared and the land met the sky, a tiny puff of steam appeared.

  ‘Good grief, it appears the train’s going to be vaguely on time for once.’ Gideon opened the passenger door of the Land Rover. ‘Better rally the men, I suppose.’ But he made no move to get out. It was close to midday. Why stand in the sun any longer than necessary? And the men were squatting in the shade of the trucks having a smoke anyway – no point in disturbing them.

  ‘You’d be doing Pete Mitchell a favour if you warned him to be careful,’ he said with a nod in the direction of the Holden. ‘From what I’ve heard, Harry Lampton’s the worst of a bad bunch. It wouldn’t be a good idea to cross him.’

  There was silence for a moment as they both looked at the shabby row of houses, where the only signs of life were several rangy yellow mongrels prowling amongst the shadows. The fettlers kept the ‘pig dogs’ for hunting kangaroo.

  Gideon said no more on the subject, and Daniel made no comment, but he knew he wouldn’t act on Gideon’s advice, sensible though it might be. He couldn’t possibly intrude in such a way. He felt uncomfortable enough already, as though he’d been caught peeping through the keyhole of Pete’s personal life. Who was he to issue a warning in any event? Pete Mitchell, of all people, would be fully aware of the danger he was courting. The fettlers’ camps were known to attract tough, ruthless men of whom no questions were asked, for many were on the run from the law.

  ‘I need to stretch my legs,’ he said, and he got out of the Land Rover. He felt like a spy sitting there looking at Pete’s FJ Holden. Turning his back on the fettlers’ cottages, he walked over to chat to the men as they waited for the train. Daniel wished that he hadn’t been made privy to Pete’s secret.

  Behind the tattered drawn blinds of the second cottage, Ada was performing her magic. Lean and taut-bodied, her olive skin shining with a hard-earned sweat, she rode him in steady rhythm, her muscles clenching and unclenching with systematic purpose, working him into her like a piston rod, not too fast, not too slow, they had a way to travel yet.

  This was their second bout in less than an hour, and it would end ferociously as she rekindled in him a lust he would not have thought possible. He was no stud, he was a forty-year-old man, and a jaded one at that. But with Ada he was twenty and a stallion.

  Their first bout of sex was always a form of torment. She’d rub her naked body against his, offering him every part of her, wantonly opening herself to him, her mouth, her thighs, her buttocks, but she wouldn’t allow him to stay in any one place too long. When she sensed him losing control, she’d deny all access, and then she’d eke out the delicious agony with her lips and her tongue, teasing him to a point almost beyond endurance, always knowing when to stop, and how to halt the final moment before continuing. Only when he could take no more would she give herself to him, and the final shuddering of his climax would come as an exquisite relief.

  She would allow just enough recovery time for a whisky and a cigarette. She’d fetch a fresh bottle from the secret stock – the stock with which he kept her regularly supplied and of which her husband knew nothing. Then, when they’d finished their whisky and smoke, she’d initiate the second bout. He never quite knew how he came to manage the second time, but he always did. Ada was an expert.

  Today, her teasing had taken on the broader dimension of a demand for entertainment, as happened on the occasions when she was particularly bored.

  ‘I want to go for a drive,’ she’d said when he’d first arrived.

  Pete had heaved a sigh of reluctance. ‘Sure,’ he’d replied, although all he wanted was the sex. God, just the sight of her was enough to make him hard. It wasn’t her beauty, although in her late thirties she was still good-looking, with a touch of the exotic inherited from her Indonesian father. It was the aura of the woman, and the thought of the sexual heights her mouth and her body could drive him to. Pete couldn’t get enough of Ada Lampton.

  ‘A drive it is then.’ He’d ignored the twinge of guilt he felt at wasting more of the day when he should have been out on patrol.

  He’d driven along the rough fifteen mile service track that ran beside the railway line from Watson to Ooldea, Ada urging him to go faster, dust swirling in their wake. She’d laughed whenever they’d hit a soft pocket of sand, the Holden slewing to one side, Pete wrestling the wheel.

  ‘Faster,’ she’d urged. ‘Go faster.’

  ‘We’re not likely to bump into your husband, I take it?’ It’d be just his luck to find Harry Lampton working the track between Watson and Ooldea, Pete had thought.

  ‘Nah.’ Ada obviously had no such qualms. ‘Tommo’s sent him way down the line – he won’t be back for days.’ She’d put her hand on his crotch. ‘Come on, lover boy,’ she’d said, the touch of her fingers producing an immediate erection, ‘go faster …’

  He’d driven like a maniac to Ooldea, not only to please her but in order to get her back to the cottage and into bed.

  During the return trip to Watson she’d continued to play with him, bringing him close to the point of ejaculation, then stopping and playing with herself instead, pulling her skirt up around her waist, exposing herself to him – she never wore panties – and he’d nearly driven off the track.

  He’d pulled up beside the cottage and waited for her to get out so that he could park the vehicle over near the siding as usual.

  ‘Leave the ute here,’ she’d said.

  He’d hesitated. Then her hand was on him yet again, and yet again he’d felt himself instantly harden.

  ‘The men are all at work, there’s no train due, and I need to fuck,’ she’d said.

  Stuff the ute, Pete had thought. He hadn’t been able get out of the car quickly enough.

  The second bout now nearing its conclusion, he rolled her onto her back and was pounding himself into her when he heard the train. He dimly recalled that she’d said there was no train due, but the responsive thrust of her hips signalled she was on the verge
of orgasm, which drove him to fresh heights and his mind became blanketed to all but the frenzy of their coupling. Then her fingernails were raking his back and the crescendo of her moans was mingling with his own animal grunts, and suddenly it was over.

  She recovered herself in a matter of seconds, and stood to peer through the slit of the torn canvas blinds at the train that had just pulled into the siding.

  He sat up, still fighting for breath. ‘You told me there was no train due,’ he said.

  ‘I forgot.’ The lie was blatant, but she shrugged with unashamed indifference.

  Ada’s gaze was focused on the man in charge of the team about to unload the crates. God, Gideon was beautiful. She willed him to look in her direction. And he did. She could have sworn he looked right into her eyes. She was aware that he wouldn’t actually be able to see her, but she’d put money on the fact that he was fantasising about her. He would know exactly what was going on inside the cottage – he would have seen Pete’s ute, as had been her intention. At this very moment he would be wishing like hell he’d accepted her offer, she thought with smug satisfaction. Then she noticed that quite a number of the other men were glancing in the direction of the house. They would all have seen the ute, and no doubt they were all fantasising about having her. The thought excited Ada immeasurably.

  Pete stood and joined her. ‘Shit,’ he muttered as he peered through the blind and saw Daniel. Twice in the past when he’d failed to avoid the train’s arrival, he’d seen Gideon and his men, but on both occasions another officer of the transport corps had been with the team. Why did the kid have to turn up on the very day he’d parked directly outside Ada’s cottage, damn it! The fact annoyed Pete intensely, although he wasn’t sure why. Did it really matter if the kid knew of his tawdry arrangement with the fettler’s wife? Or was he angered at being caught out neglecting his duty? Whatever the reason, Pete felt strangely guilty, as if he’d let young Daniel down in some way.