Then another man climbs up on top of the whale, stepping cautiously closer to where Gerhard Rohlfs had been standing, and calls out, “He has fallen inside! He is inside the whale!”
Now there is consternation. The men hold up their knives and tools, but do not know what best to do with them. How to cut a man out of a whale? The animal has ribs like iron prison bars. Then Herr Kaufmann says, “We must save him. He will suffocate. We can go in through the whale’s mouth or through the anus.”
The men look at each other and quickly assemble near the whale’s mouth. As many as can fit there grab hold and heave, until they are able to lift the bulk just a little and open the mouth.
Herr Kaufmann steps up close and calls in, “Hallo!” As if shouting down a long dark tunnel. There is no response. He straightens up and says, “We must send somebody in. Somebody small and brave.” He looks around as if seeking out the right man from amongst them. But while not wishing to be thought of as not being, many men puff out their chests and strain their shoulders so as to appear not small either.
Finally, Herr Kaufmann jabs his finger at one young man just a few years older than Arno. “You!” he says. “Herr Hess isn’t it?”
“Heinz,” says the young man slowly. “Karl Heinz.” Herr Kaufmann frowns. He had wanted the young man to snap to attention. Perhaps click his bare heels.
“You will go into the whale and rescue Gerhard Rohlfs,” he says.
Karl Heinz wrinkles his nose, as if giving this some very careful thought. The men, still holding open the whale’s mouth, look back and forth from Karl Heinz to Herr Kaufmann, waiting to see if the young man is going to do it or not. Wanting somebody to move quickly. Straining from the effort of holding the weight of the whale’s head.
Then one of the men towards the rear of the whale shouts. He jumps back as if a snake has slithered over his foot. A hand has emerged from some orifice low on the whale’s side and has touched his foot. A human hand. He points at it and calls again. Quickly men run to the spot. Some take hold of the hand and others cut at the whale’s stomach, cutting into the flesh and intestines, and slowly drag Gerhard Rohlfs free.
He staggers before them like somebody who has just been reborn. Blood and gore sticking to his body. He wipes at it and then looks up at the men around him. They stare silently. Then he throws his head back and laughs, a long ringing laugh that echoes off the distant prison walls and catches up all the men around him. They all burst out laughing as Gerhard throws himself into the ocean. He paddles out in the water and ducks his head under time and time again, scrubbing the gore and blood from his body, and leaping up out of the water and laughing.
The internees are now holding their sides. Are splashing each other in the shallows and are hooting like wild delinquents. They watch Gerhard rise up from the water and then sink down again, splash up and continue laughing at his escape from possible death. And they hear that laugh suddenly turn to a wild shriek. He jerks from the water and thrashes about. They see him leap to and fro and pound his way to the shallows—a look of abject terror on his face. Just like the look on Hans Eckert’s face, think Arno. They see him stagger onto the beach clutching his leg. There is blood running from a nasty gash. And a man in the small wooden watchtower stands and calls out the word at the same time Gerhard says it, “Haifisch!”—”Shark!”
Men run from the water and stand high up on the sands, looking carefully for the dark shadows that are moving amongst the blood seeping into the water. One of the two soldiers comes down with his rifle held close and sees one of the shark’s dorsal fin break the surface. Then a shark rams the tail end of the whale. The corpse moves as if it is still alive, twitching a little and trying to get out of the sharks’ reach. The men all take a step further back up the beach.
Soon there is another frenzy, with perhaps five or six sharks feeding on the whale’s corpse, attacking it higher and higher as the water rises around it. The internees and the guards stand around it in a wide arc, watching the violence silently. Then they hear the slow put-put-put of a small boat engine, making its way across the bay from South West Rocks. The men look up to see it is one of the small fishing boats from the township. It comes towards them very slowly.
“That’s Gavin Hooks’ boat,” says a guard, when it is close enough to make out.
Gavin Hooks brings his boat in as close as he dares, then cuts the engine and looks out at the carnage in the water. Then he puts his hands to his mouth, forming a funnel and shouts, very slowly, “You—stupid—fuckin’—bastard—Huns!”
Gavin Hooks points at the whale and puts his hands back to his mouth and shouts, “These—bloody—sharks—and—blood—will—fuck—up—our—fishin’—in—the—bay—for—days!”
Herr Kaufmann asks one of the younger men nearby him to translate what the fisherman has said and then puffs out his cheeks indignantly and glares at the fisherman. Gavin Hooks sees him and lowers his hands a little as if waiting for some response, then calls, “Why—didn’t—you—dopey—pricks—just—ask—us—to—tow—the—whale—out—to—sea!”
Again, Herr Kaufmann asks for a translation, and then has one of the men call back to Gavin Hooks in English. “It is a sperm whale. Is worth much for us.”
“Sperm—whale?” calls Gavin Hooks. “Bull!—Shit!—This—is—a— Finn—whale!—Worth—bloody—nothin’!”
The internees look at Herr Kaufmann out of the side of their eyes, waiting to see what he will say. “Es is nicht wahr,” he says—It is not true.
“Fuckin’—stupid—Hun—bastards!” Gavin Hooks calls again. Then the engine of his small boat restarts and he turns and makes his way slowly back across the bay.
The internees stand there, watching the sharks gorging themselves on the whale carcass for some time, and then, one by one, they turn and make their way back up to the prison, a heavier feeling upon their empty hands than any load of blubber they had carried up the hill that day.
At dinner that evening conversation has turned back to Hans Eckert. A word or two of information is whispered at one table and slowly spreads down the length of the hall, winding its way from table to table until all 400 men have heard it. But no one quite knows where it has originated from.
Arno is sitting at one of the tables at the end of the room, watching it travel around the hall. Horst is at his table, but is eating with his head down, not looking up at him. Herr Kaufmann sits next to Arno and seems eager to make up his lost fortunes with the men, by being the one who relays news to them from the table behind his back.
“It is said Hans Eckert was seen wondering around the compound on the night he took ill,” he says.
“But it is forbidden to be in the compound at night.”
“Some people wander around there in the dark,” says Horst. Not looking up. Not looking at Arno.
“What was he doing?” asks another.
Herr Kaufmann then turns back to the table behind him to collect some more information. He looks back to his tablemates and says, “It is said that he was found by one of the guards in the first light. That they carried him to the infirmary where Doctor Hertz was called to examine him.”
Arno knows this is not true, but says nothing. He had seen him killed in his cell. He had been by the walls when it was still dark, and the truck had been there already to fetch Herr Eckert’s body from the infirmary.
“Poor fellow,” says one of the old men, shaking his head. “He wasn’t a bad chap.”
“Did you know him?” asks Horst, barely looking up.
“As well as I know any of you here,” he says.
“So you didn’t know him at all,” says Horst.
The old man splutters a little and looks across to Herr Kaufmann for support. He looks at Horst for a moment, and then says, “If you cannot talk without conflict, then it is better not to talk at all, you know.”
Horst gives his agreement b
y not replying.
“So why do you think he would have been outside in the compound?” another man asks Herr Kaufmann.
“I’m sure the only person who knows that is Herr Eckert himself,” he says.
And Horst adds, “And he’s not speaking.”
There is no concert that evening as the whale has consumed so much of the men’s energies. Many go to their cells early to nurse their sore muscles and blistered hands. Others sit in the hall playing cards or talking, or just standing around the piano by the wall.
Arno however stands out in the yard under the southwest watchtower. The sky has gone from blue to blackness and he feels the stones behind his back turning dark and chill. He has had a new thought that the beast that slew Herr Eckert may have been the same beast that attacked Pandora, and it may have been created by the same man. One of the internees dreaming up their deaths as sure as if he were a murderer himself.
Arno tries to feel any remnants of that dream in the walls to help him identify it, but he’s not able to concentrate this evening. He hears the sounds of waves outside the walls crashing against the breakwater, slowly wearing it down. Carrying it away. Bit by bit by bit.
After some time he opens his eyes and glances down at his watch. But he can no longer make out the time. He looks up again and can see stars in the sky. He tries to guess how long he has been standing there. He shakes his head a little to clear it, as it feels like he has been asleep. He shakes his limbs a little too, to rid the cramp in them. Then he sees something move out of the corner of his eye. He turns his head and stares towards it. Then he looks a little to the side, to improve his night vision. He can see something moving. Something dark, moving low and close to the ground. His first thought is that it is an animal. Something like a wolf. Something that has come out of the shadows there.
But the way it moves is not right. It scuttles. Like a giant dark crab. Or like a person, bent very low perhaps. Arno stands very still. He watches the dark figure move along the cell wall opposite him, then turn towards him. He leans back into the wall. Tries to still his breathing. And he thinks he sees a glint of light in the figure’s hand. A claw? A knife? The murderer, he thinks, coming for him.
Then the dark figure moves right past him. As if he has been invisible. As if he has become a part of the rock wall. The figure reaches the foot of the wooden staircase and quickly runs up the stairs over Arno’s head into the watchtower. Arno looks up and tries to hear any more sounds. Waits for the longest time, but can only hear the incessant beating of the waves breaking down the breakwater.
“Tell us about the front, Sergeant,” says one of the men after the guard’s evening meal. A keen-faced young local lad. Not long in uniform. The paleness of his neck showing where the hair has only recently been shorn. The redness around the throat where the rough woollen khaki uniform has been rubbing on it.
Sergeant Gore looks at him. Standing by the table where he has been watching a card game between two men. He likes to spend a bit of time each day in the men’s barracks, getting to know them better. Getting them to know him.
“What’s your name?” Sergeant Gore asks him.
“Horne,” says the lad.
“Alright,” he says. “I’ll tell you a little about the front. What do you know already?”
The lad shrugs. “Just what I read in the newspaper. Just what I heard.”
“Well you probably never heard this,” says Sergeant Gore, and he waits until the card players have put down their cards. Waits until most of the men around him are staring at him. “A front happens when two armies meet each other. Before that it could be any place, just like here, trees and fields and a crop growing maybe. Or it could be a desolate strip of rocks and scrawny bushes. But then it becomes a battlefield. At Gallipoli we were landed in the dark, you see, the brass said it would enable us to get the jump on Johnny Turk. Enable us to creep right up on his defences before he even knew we were there. But it was chaos. Landing craft getting stuck in the shallows. Horses and donkeys screaming out as we tried to land them quietly, and so dark you couldn’t see which way you were going. Couldn’t see they’d landed us up against dirty great rock cliffs.”
He pauses. Looks to see every man in the barracks is paying close attention. “Then when the first light came we saw how hopeless our position was. Saw it was like a fortress in front of us. And of course the Turks could see us, and they let us have it with everything they had. You’ve never seen anything like it. Shells going off all around. Bullets flying so close to your head you could hear them. Feel them sometimes. We dug into the cliffs and edged our way slowly upwards. Determined we’d get there. They threw everything they had at us, but we kept going. Would have reached the top and over-run them too if the brass didn’t lose their nerve.”
He’s staring towards the roof now. “Men were dropping all around me. There’d be this sudden thud behind you and you’d know the man there had been hit. But I kept on. Led my men to a high point and then we dug in. Dug as deep as we could and let the Turks have it. Covering fire for our mates on the beaches. Helped as many get ashore as we could. Helped as many as possible dig their own trenches.” The men closest to him see his jaw twitch as he talks.
He looks back towards Private Horne. Just looks at him.
“And?” the newcomer asks the Sergeant.
“That was it,” says the Sergeant, “Except for the dirt and the flies and lice and the blood and the stink of shit and death and the lack of water and the lack of sleep and the constant shelling and seeing your mates getting shot out of all recognition, lying dead in their trenches like they were their graves you’d helped them dig, and each day the very landscape about you is blown to unknowable shapes and you can’t even tell if the smashed up bodies around you belong to the Huns or your mates any more.
“The front at Gallipoli became just like the front in France,” he says. “We were huddled in trenches in the mud, being shot slowly to shit by the Turks or the Huns and knowing that one of their bullets had our name on it, but never knowing which it was. And the maddening terror of that grips you worse than any winter’s chill, I can tell you.”
He stops. He’s said it. Finally said it. He looks around the room. Takes in the faces of all the men watching him. Sees every one of them is staring at him closely. Even Simpson and Cutts-Smith. He’s even said it to them.
“But,” he says slowly, “when you suffer all that and still find the courage to stand up and attack the enemy one more time, then you know you’re a soldier!”
Private Horne nods his head slowly, as if he actually understands something of that. But the Sergeant can see that Private Cutts-Smith is not so easily impressed by war stories.
He watches him turn his head away, showing the angry scarred side of his face to him.
Arno shares Gerhard Rohlfs’ dream that night—clearly the most traumatised man in the prison. He is back inside the whale, but is unable to escape. The leviathan’s skin has become translucent though, and he can see the vague shapes of people outside, calling to him. But he cannot answer them. He is captive inside the rib cage of the whale, the bones like tall ivory bars around him.
He can hear the muffled sounds of their talking, but has no way of letting them know he is still alive.
He hears them say they should find a way to cut the whale open and get his corpse out if he has died, or free him if he has not. He hears them say they could open the whale’s mouth to reach him, but somebody has sewn the lips shut.
Then he hears the voices of Australian soldiers telling his comrades to move away from the whale, telling them it is illegal to try and enter the whale. Telling them that the whale is going to be towed out to sea, and left on a remote Pacific Island.
He hears his comrades ask if they will be told which island it is, so that they may travel there to free him, but the soldiers say the location is being kept secret and also that it will be i
llegal to visit the island.
He can hear the despair in his comrades’ voices as they call out to him again, asking him to give them some sign that he is alive. And again he tries to call back to them, but still cannot make a sound loud enough to be heard. Then he reaches up and finds that his own lips have been sewn shut too. So even his screams at the terror of being imprisoned in the whale for endless years are silenced.
4
Another Day
Arno is standing by the walls of the prison the next morning as the first light starts to soften the darkness. He can feel so many dreams fading away into the stone, but none of them the violent and dangerous creature he is trying to find. None the murderer he is searching for. And he wonders, for an instant, if he isn’t trapped in a dream of his own? All these years in internment just a passing moment of sleeping that he will wake from and find himself back in the worker’s camp in Western Australia once more.
He lets the idea fall from him and then he thinks that if he still believed in prayer he would pray that this day was just like any other. That when the gates were thrown open the calmness would descend upon him and any change from the day before would be minor. He could survive that, he believes.
But when the guards eventually open the gates for the morning, after breakfast, the men stream out and find that their village of cafes and huts has been attacked in the night. Doors are kicked in. Mountain backdrops are pulled down and cut up. Furniture is thrown outside and smashed. And everything is covered in blood. It drips across the doorways as crudely as the blood on those posters of the beastly Hun they have all seen—a tall dark ogre-like figure, with a spiked German helmet, eating the hands off small children.
Men walk amongst the ruins in shock, picking up bits of canvas and wood that have been reduced from Alpine vistas to painted scraps. The destruction is too enormous for words for many of them. The proprietor of one of the cafes has dropped to his knees on the bloody and smashed up wood, trying to re-assemble it, like a man might when returning home to find a small crater where his family home had been. Some men sit in silence, amongst the wreckage of the cafes and bars and stare blankly at the reality of their situation that has been exposed. It is not a pleasant thing to contemplate.
The Years of the Wolf Page 9