by Alan Collins
ELEVEN
January 1967. ‘‘The South Vietnamese Prime Minister, Air Vice Marshal Ky, has been received with fierce hostility during every public appearance in Australia. Despite the appeal by Prime Minister Harold Holt for the public to give the visitor ‘a fair go’ he has been the subject of violent demonstrations and barrages of abuse.’’
Joshua was about to screw the Bathurst newspaper up when a tiny head, just one in a crowd picture taken from a high vantage point, made him flatten out the crumpled paper. He rummaged in Andy’s desk drawer and found a magnifying glass used to identify obscured engine numbers.
‘‘Bloody hell, it’s Laura!’’ He read the caption: ‘‘Police fight with a milling, clawing mob of anti-war protestors trying to get to the Marshal’s car.’’
His first impulse was to ring and find out if she was uninjured and, more importantly, not in gaol, where, if he knew Laura, she would boast of assisting draft resisters to hide. Maybe it was too late. The paper was reporting yesterday’s happening. His mind raced ahead with possibilities. Why had Sergeant Fisher turned up last night — the day of the protest? On his own say-so, it wasn’t really to chastise Toni for haring around the countryside in a beat-up jeep. Charlie Mackson had definitely spotted him in the front seat with Laura. Charlie would know the habits and doings of everybody in all the five hamlets that ringed Bathurst.
Belatedly, it dawned on Joshua that he could have hidden out in Sydney or Melbourne with a better chance than in a country town. Suddenly, it all became clear to him. The move to Bathurst was a benign conspiracy between Shulamit Roth-field and Ethel Piper — perhaps it also had Jacob’s tacit agreement. It was a loving effort to give him the experience of an extended family.
Joshua tore out the picture with Laura in it. As he turned it over he saw the discreet headline:
NUI DAT CASUALTIES
Following the successful operation by Australian troops of 6th Battalion last week, the Dept of Defence in Canberra has released the Australian casualty list …
Joshua gazed out of the dirty office window at the vista of crumpled cars and rusting farm machinery. He looked down at the column of names of young men of his own age whose broken bodies would be returned to Australia, many of whom would have died without ever seeing the faces of those who killed them.
Jacob had once and once only told Joshua how Pnina had met her death in Israel, cut to pieces by machine-gun fire while trying to give aid to a wounded Arab. At the time, Joshua wondered why Jacob had never described the Arab as the enemy. But Jacob Kaiser reserved his small well of hatred for the evils of the 1930s Depression that had killed his father and for the Holocaust that had caused the death of Joshua’s natural parents.
Three weeks had passed since Joshua’s trip to the Bushrangers’ Cave with Toni and the intimacy that followed it. Toni looked upon the entire episode as a natural outcome of having a reasonable looking young bloke conveniently under the same roof as herself. They had not made love since; all that the intimacy had achieved was to break the tension between them. Now, they could get on with their own activities. Joshua was quite pleased with this new relationship. Toni and he had developed a mateship which, with the occasional intrusion of Bazza, gave them both a freedom to enjoy each other’s company free of stress and obligation. They took bike rides over the plains and lay in the long grass without their clothes. It was a time of peace for them both.
The phone on Andy’s desk was ringing. Joshua moved to pick it up then remembered Andy’s orders not to answer the phone. In any case, the loud bell in the yard would alert Andy. The ringing stopped and moments later Andy entered the office. ‘‘Pick up the phone, Joshua,’’ he ordered, his face clouded with worry.
Joshua did as he was asked. He heard Ilan’s clipped rapid English.
‘‘Listen chaver, the Commonwealth Police are on to you. They trapped Laura into telling where you are. You had better leave where you are straight away.’’
Joshua gripped the phone while Andy stood by, nervously cracking his knuckles.
Ilan shouted down the phone: ‘‘Can you hear me? Do you understand what I’m telling you? Why the hell don’t you speak, you idiot?’’
Joshua slumped down in Andy’s rickety swivel chair. Cold sweat trickled down his back. ‘‘What’ll I do, Ilan?’’
‘‘Do? Do? What’ll I do?’’ Ilan mimicked Joshua. ‘‘Listen to me. First of all, you are going to survive. Do you understand? You owe it to your mother and father.’’
Joshua gasped in amazement. This bloody little Israeli spy knew every damn thing. In fact, Ilan had spoken to Jacob, who told him the full story of saving the baby Joshua from drowning off a beach in Israel in 1948. It was at Jacob’s insistence that Ilan was now taking the first steps to rescue Joshua Kaiser from the threat of a military call-up. It was rather ironic, as Ilan told Jacob: ‘‘I’ve already done my three years army service in Israel,’’ he reminded him.
Now Ilan’s voice, sharp and forceful, bored into Joshua. ‘‘I have certain arrangements to make here in Sydney. Can you hide out in the bush for a few days then join me at a place your Uncle Siddy knows?’’
‘‘Uncle Siddy?’’ Joshua asked.
‘‘Don’t underestimate the old man, Joshua. He is, how do you say it? Cunning as a shit-house rat!’’ Ilan laughed. Even under the circumstances, it was obvious to Joshua that Ilan was enjoying every moment of the drama he had helped create.
Entering into the spirit of Ilan’s intrigue, Joshua covered the phone’s mouthpiece and told Andy the less he knew the better it would be. Andy shrugged and left the office. Joshua spoke to Ilan. ‘‘There’s a cave about fifty miles from here. Toni showed it to me and —’’
Ilan laughed and said, ‘‘I don’t want to know what you got up to there, Joshua. Now tell me, can you hide there for a couple of days, because I think that within a few hours, the Commonwealth Police will hit Bathurst and they’ll have a warrant for your arrest.’’
Joshua pictured the huge, dank, gloomy cave with its well-concealed entrance. The natural light penetrated only a few metres. He assured Ilan that the Bushrangers’ Cave was fine.
Ilan accepted this and then whispered down the phone. ‘‘Joshua, do you remember any Hebrew that you learned at Sunday school?’’
‘‘Are you kidding, Ilan?’’
‘‘I am — what is it you Aussies say? — fair dunkum?’’
‘‘Dinkum!”
‘‘Dinkum, dunkum? Who cares? Whatever it is, I don’t think the lines are safe. I want to give you Uncle Siddy’s number, so why not use Hebrew as a code, OK?’’
Joshua racked his brains to recall the Hebrew alphabet which had been drummed into him all those years ago. He nodded. Ilan shouted down the phone. ‘‘Yes, yes,’’ Joshua responded.
‘‘OK,’’ Ilan said, ‘‘now write this down: Bet-Gimmel-Ayin-Tov-Shin-Vov. Got it? Now repeat it to me.’’
Joshua solemnly read the alphabet/numbers back to Ilan, feeling quite foolish as he did so.
Ilan must have detected a lack of seriousness in Joshua’s tone. He reprimanded him. He told him, again in a whisper, that this was Uncle Siddy’s silent number — the one he used for special deals. ‘‘D’you get me, Yossie? OK, I’m off now, see you some place, some time. Shalom, chaver.’’ The line clicked; Joshua put the receiver down and was not surprised to find his hand was sweaty.
The sense of urgency that Ilan had created abated slowly as Joshua considered his situation. For once it was quiet in the dirty office. There was none of the loud music Andy liked to work by, no sound from the railway shunting yards, nothing but the spindly loquat tree scraping its twigs along the fibro wall. A fly-specked calendar showed an E Type Jaguar with a windblown blonde girl who looked achingly like Toni Piper. Joshua turned away from it. Toni, he thought bitterly, was just another somebody who wanted to make decisions affecting his life. He lumped her together with Laura Philips and Shulamit Rothfield. Now, he could add the name of Ilan to the list. T
hey all seemed to know what was best for him. What gnawed at him was the fact that, in time, he would have probably arrived at the same decisions they had — it just took him a lot longer.
Now he’d have to, as Abe Lewis would succintly put it, get his finger out. Joshua straightened his shoulders as the thought took hold. He stripped off the overalls with ‘‘Mister Fixit’’ on the back, took what he was sure would be his last look around the wrecking yard and strode out into the late afternoon sun, immediately forgetting Ilan’s plea for caution. In the distance he could see Andy leaning against the pub rail. He was talking to two men who could have been Sergeant Fisher and Constable Mackson.
And then again, they might not have been.
Joshua tried to shrink his tall, solid figure as he hurried furtively along side lanes and groves to Ethel Piper’s house in Brilliant Street. As he sprinted from the last stand of trees, Bazza ran to greet him, barking wildly and trying to round him up. They made it through the front gate together. Toni yelled at him from the kitchen window. He did not stop but continued around the back until he reached his room. Once inside, having Bazza shunted outside, he dragged out his haversack and began stuffing in his clothes. He was already wearing jeans and working boots. He left out a pullover and a windjacket. Something made him put the worn brass compass on a cord around his neck.
Toni was banging on the door. ‘‘We don’t lock doors in this house,’’ she called to him. ‘‘What’s going on, Joe?’’ she wheedled, ‘‘you can tell your Aunty Toni.’’ Wearily he opened the door and Toni just about tumbled into his arms. She took in the scene at a glance. ‘‘Oh ho, so you’re shooting through, Mister Joe King, leaving me all alone to care for our baby!’’
Joshua went white. Toni put her arms around him. She whispered in his ear: ‘‘You silly bugger, thought you’d gone and done it, didn’t you?’’ She released him as the colour flooded back to his cheeks. They sat close together on his bed, their heads touching. He told her the broad outline of Ilan’s phone call, that he was well and truly on the run now as a draft resister wanted by the Commonwealth Police.
Even with the little that Joshua had told her, Toni was caught up in the excitement. ‘‘It’s got to be Bushrangers’ Cave, Joe — oh well, there’s no point in calling you Joe any more — I’ll drive you there, Joshua. We’ll do it tonight. I’ll pack you some food and stuff and —’’
Joshua looked at her pert upturned face and could not resist kissing her. ‘‘Do you realise, Miss Toni Piper, you are breaking the law by aiding and abetting the notorious draft-dodger Joshua Kaiser?’’ He stifled her response with another kiss, then she broke away to become the practical co-conspirator.
‘‘I’m off to the kitchen now to get you some tucker, Josh. Be ready to leave in twenty minutes. It’ll be dark by then and what’s more it’ll be before Nana gets home.’’
Joshua made an effort at tidying up the room and then joined Toni in the kitchen. The girl was a marvel of efficiency, picking items from shelf, cupboard and fridge with deft assurance. A basket was soon laden with tins, soft drinks, bread, margarine and a dozen other items including candles and even toilet paper, Joshua noted in wonderment. ‘‘You’ll need a sleeping bag and a groundsheet and I’ll give you this old hurricane lamp. It’s a museum piece but it still works.’’ She told Joshua to bring the basket and left the kitchen to get the other bits and pieces.
Outside, it was already dark with a chill wind. Toni put the gear in the back of the jeep and motioned to Joshua to climb aboard. He shuddered at the staccato broken exhaust as Toni revved up the cold motor. The little vehicle leapt down the driveway. Toni called to Joshua: ‘‘No stops till we hit the caves, so I hope you’ve had a leak!’’ Joshua nodded and gripped the side of the jeep as Toni accelerated and the wheels hit the bitumen.
In a way Joshua was sorry to leave Bathurst. It was the first country town he had ever spent any time in. Its broad streets and fine buildings were impressive enough but he really enjoyed being able to walk along its wide footpaths without being jostled at every step. Behind his thick moustache he felt both secure and a bit of a fraud, as though he were cheating the people of Bathurst. His hand went up to the moustache. Toni noticed and said, ‘‘It tickled, Josh, but I didn’t mind it. Well, soon you can take it off.’’
If he had been nervous when she drove him to the Bushrangers’ Cave in daylight, he was doubly so tonight as the weak headlights of the jeep barely showed more than fifty yards ahead. Soon the hum of tyres on bitumen ended and they were jolting along the unsealed road that began its winding descent to the valley floor where the Grove Creek trickled past the cave entrance. ‘‘I’m not in a hurry to get rid of you, Josh, it’s just that the sooner I get back the better and Dad won’t know what I’ve been up to until he looks at the petrol gauge.’’ Even as she spoke, the jeep halted.
First out was Bazza, tail wagging furiously and running to cock his leg at the nearest tree.
Toni swore; Joshua was shocked, more by the strength of her language than by the surprise presence of the dog. ‘‘You’ll have to take him back with you, Toni.’’
‘‘The cunning bastard must have hidden while I was getting the sleeping bag. Catch him for me.’’ She threw him his haversack and shouldered the basket and gear herself, striding off into the dark on the narrow track that wound up to the entrance to the Bushrangers’ Cave. Without too much hope that the dog would obey, Joshua whistled and called and followed Toni up the track.
They climbed past the Sink Hole and Coops Bluff and finally reached the arched opening of the cave. There was no sign of Bazza. Toni was furious. She called Joshua a few choice names and then was immediately contrite. She spread the ground-sheet and sleeping bag on the floor deep inside the cave, where her grandfather’s lantern sent grotesque shadows leaping across the walls. They lay down facing each other.
‘‘I thought you were in a hurry to get back.’’
‘‘Struth, you are a clot sometimes, Joshua Kaiser, also known as Joe King. I’m not in that much of a hurry that I can’t say goodbye to you … nicely!’’ This time their lovemaking was passionate and a little desperate. There would not be another occasion, each was very sure about that. In a while Toni dressed; sitting close to him, she revealed her fears that he might end up in a gaol or shot or … she ran out of evils that might befall him.
They stood together at the mouth of the cave. Toni said, ‘‘Listen, I’ve got an idea. I’ll leave Bazza here for a couple of days. He’ll be a decoy if and when the Commonwealth Police come. Don’t attempt to call him, let him run wild for a bit; he’ll be OK on rabbits and stuff he’ll kill. As for you, it’s like what we talked about. You hide here and after they’ve given up, start walking east along the Abercrombie River. Follow the signposts to Oberon and from there you can hitch back to Sydney.’’
Toni made a mock bow to Joshua. ‘‘Great meeting you, sport. Not too many Jewish draft dodgers coming through Bathurst this time of the year.’’
Joshua went to embrace her but she was gone, swallowed up in the blackness of the bush. A short time later, he heard the racket of the jeep engine echo around the valley, setting off a cacophony of night birds. He stared disconsolately at the shadows, hoping that at least Bazza might appear.
But when the birds were silent, there was nothing, just the vastness of the Australian night sky and an unpredictable future.
TWELVE
The Bathurst police station in Rankin Street had never had a visit from officers of the Australian Commonwealth Police. There was no love lost between the two arms of the law; the NSW State Police, if not exactly hindering their national counterparts, did no more than what was demanded of them in mutual law enforcement.
This morning, in the cubby-hole that was Sergeant Bill Fisher’s office, two well-dressed men in their late thirties introduced themselves as Commonwealth Police officers. ‘‘I am Senior Constable Warren Kelso and this is Constable, Constable …’’
‘‘Wayne William
s.’’
‘‘Sorry about that, Sergeant, but we only got together a couple of hours ago. Met at Sydney airport and flew up together.’’
Bill Fisher thought, that’d be right; a ten minute briefing — good enough to show the bushies how things are done. Still, they looked efficient, having brought a tape recorder and a Polaroid camera which they placed ostentatiously on Fisher’s desk. He pretended not to notice these aids to detection and listened to Kelso’s explanation of their visit.
The Commonwealth policeman turned on the tape recorder.
Mrs Rothfield’s voice. Her accent became more pronounced as her agitation mounted. Fisher bent his head to hear. It appeared that Kelso had interviewed her in her flat, all silky-voiced until Shulamit Rothfield realised she had been tricked into telling of her friendship with Ethel Piper. The old woman had then cursed the policeman in Polish, Hebrew and Yiddish. Kelso maintained a bland politeness through it all, speaking in that stilted fashion beloved of officials.
At a nod from Kelso, Williams switched the tape off. ‘‘Do you know the Piper family, Sergeant?’’ Kelso asked.
‘‘This isn’t Sydney, Mister Kelso, it’s a country town. Of course I know them.’’
Kelso took a photo out of his briefcase and laid it on the desk. It was a polaroid copy of Joshua’s graduation photo. He waited for Fisher’s response. After a moment’s silence the Sergeant shook his head. Kelso pushed it close to Fisher. ‘‘Quite sure? Nobody like him?’’ Williams added in a warm voice: ‘‘You’d know if anybody new came to Bathurst for a stay — or to a hide-out — wouldn’t you, Sergeant Fisher?’’
Fisher turned his back on the photo. Looking out of the window so the other two could not see his face, he replied, ‘‘Andy Piper’s had his nephew from Sydney staying with him — big bloke, dark complexion and thick moustache. Didn’t look much like the joker in your picture.’’