Word Hunters

by Nick Earls

  The word hunters landed on the riverbank, on a quay opposite stone buildings with blue-black roofs.

  ‘This is Paris,’ Will said as he took it all in. ‘I’ve seen pictures. What year is it? You’ve got to tell me.’

  As Al reached for the peg, Lexi checked what she was wearing.

  ‘Yay!’ She twirled to show off her dress. ‘It’s “gun” and I’m dressed like a girl, not like a soldier.’ She even had a parasol. They were all civilians. ‘I wish I’d got the backpack, though. These picnic baskets are cute, but—’

  ‘I knew it.’ Will took the peg from Al and showed her the year. ‘It’s my time. This is Paris in my time. London’s just—’ He turned and made a guess, pointing roughly downstream – ‘over there.’

  As Lexi watched Will looking around at Paris, at an era that he understood and a place not far from his home, she felt sick. She wondered how soon he would leave them. They had landed late in the greatest war in history, they had barely started on the mission and the word was ‘gun’. She couldn’t bear the thought of him going now, but this was what they’d promised him. Caractacus or 1918.

  Will took off his hat and read the label inside. ‘The hats are Homburgs,’ he said, mainly to Al, who was wearing one too. ‘And what we’re wearing on our legs are spats. I know this stuff. I don’t usually get to – We’re pretty stylish, you and me. This isn’t what I wear at home.’ He put the hat back on his head and smiled. ‘Paris. In 1918. I always wanted to come to Paris.’

  But something was going on that didn’t fit with the Paris he’d imagined. Near them on the quay, men and women were gathering around a hole. Something had blasted it a metre deep into the stone, and rubble and other debris were scattered across the cobbles. A few of the people were looking up at the sky, which was clear and blue.

  ‘There was no plane,’ a man was saying, as if his word was being questioned. ‘There was nothing.’

  ‘Do they already have guns in Paris?’ another voice said. ‘Or something that can fly so high we can’t see it?’

  There was a crash and a boom somewhere nearby, behind the riverfront buildings. On the quay, people screamed and ran, though they had no idea where to go. Some held their hands over their heads. One woman lost her hat and it rolled like a wheel before tipping over.

  ‘I’ve got it,’ Will said. ‘I didn’t do this one when I did “gun”. I read about it in the papers. I’d already done “gun” by then. It’s March 1918, the Germans are beginning their spring offensive and the biggest gun the world has ever seen, the Kaiser Wilhelm, is parked in a forest a long way north of here. This is the morning it’s started shelling Paris.’ They could see smoke above the quayside buildings and hear the bells of fire engines. ‘You realise that’s where we’ve got to go? To the gun. That’s how this one works. It’s a bunch of famous guns with names. I just didn’t know Kaiser Bill would be on the list. I know how to do the rest of them.’

  ‘But you—’ Lexi stopped herself. It sounded like Will was coming with them, at least for now. She’d expected him to leave – to tell them what they needed to know about the stages ahead and set off for London.

  ‘I’m the best guide you’ll get to 1918.’ He knew what she was thinking. ‘And to this gun. Even if I’ve never seen it before.’

  He watched a boat drifting down the river, a man selling magazines. He had always wanted to come to Paris, but not like this. In the 21st century he had googled it and worked out exactly which cabarets he would see after the war. He would come in 1921, when they rebuilt the Moulin Rouge.

  He had googled the war, too, and knew it would be over in November. But today there would be panic on the streets of Paris. Panic was exactly what the Kaiser Wilhelm was for. It was a huge gun, but not much of a weapon in terms of the damage it could do. All it had going for it was distance and secrecy. It could send small shells a long way without much accuracy, but as long as they kept landing in the middle of Paris the fear in the city would build.

  ‘We need a pilot,’ he told the others. ‘It’s spotted by a pilot.’

  ‘And what do we do with him when we get him?’ Al couldn’t see what good a pilot would do them. ‘Tell him where it is and then what?’

  ‘We get him to take us to the gun.’ Will tried to make it sound as though it wasn’t a big deal. There were two armies and a war between them and the Kaiser Wilhelm. ‘It’s a lot smarter than going through the battlefront.’

  Al knew he was right about avoiding the battlefront. At school he’d seen film from the time and there had been movies about it on TV, with endless mud and rubble and smashed trees. Barbed wire, explosions, gas. No one had planned for how bad it would be.

  ‘So how do we get the pilot to take us?’ It didn’t seem as straightforward to Al as Will had put it. ‘I’m guessing it’s not a thing they do regularly – take civilians up in the air and drop them behind enemy lines.’

  ‘The pilot who finds the gun will be a hero,’ Lexi said. ‘That’s what we’ve got to bargain with. If Will knows where the gun is.’

  ‘But what do we do when we get there?’

  ‘We can’t solve everything now.’ Will could picture the gun on rail tracks, but that was all. He thought it was based in a tunnel. ‘It’ll be the portal. And the Germans will hear us in fluent German. We need to get close and then find a way in. And we need to get moving now. There’ll be another shell in a few minutes.’

  Will turned towards the steps that led up to the street. Al wanted more answers, a more detailed plan. They were about to fly into a war and then work out what to do next. He wanted to be home. He wanted a different word. He’d read too many of the last letters that soldiers had sent back from this war. Every country town in Australia had its war memorial to its World War I dead.

  His shoe caught in his spats and he stumbled on the steps. And noticed the initials written on the stone in blue ballpoint pen. ‘AH’.

  He grabbed Lexi’s arm. ‘Look!’

  She read the letters. ‘Hey, one of the – It’s 1918, so it’s a word hunter from after 1918. It’s—’

  ‘From the 1940s or later. First commercial ballpoint pen – Argentina, 1943, Laszlo Biro. I looked it up. And next to the initials – that wiggly line and the thing beside it. If you’re from 1918 it’s nothing, but if you’re from after 1970—’

  ‘It’s the Sydney Opera House and the Harbour Bridge. It’s Grandad Al. He’s been here.’ Lexi set her basket on a step and looked down at the people on the quay. ‘He might still be here.’

  Paris was a big city. She didn’t know where to start with their photos. But they had a trace of him. And if he was here he would be in a Homburg hat and spats, a civilian.

  There were soldiers on the street when they reached the top of the steps from the quay. Despite the two explosions, they were smoking and laughing together. They were on leave, most of them, taking their turn away from the front.

  There were American and British soldiers as well as French. There were probably Australians, too. They were writing postcards on the quay and drinking coffee in cafes. One of them was playing a trumpet. The word hunters showed their photo around, but no one recognised Grandad Al. Somewhere in the distance another shell landed.

  Will found a group of French pilots sitting outside a cafe. He knew what to look for. The war had been going since he was 11, and he’d memorised all the uniforms, medals and weapons of the allied armies. The French pilots’ uniform was so dark it was almost black. It had a golden wing sewn at each end of the collar opening back from a star, and a pair of wings crossed by a propeller on each sleeve. The pants were baggy at the top and tucked into boots that came to just below the knees.

  One of the pilots was showing with his hands the angle he had used to attack a German plane and bring it down. He was talking as if he was the expert, but the others kept interrupting and telling him what
he should have done. They were all telling bigger and better stories about what heroes they were. At the edge of the group one pilot sat looking far less interested than the rest.

  The man next to him nudged him and said, ‘Don’t worry, Didier. One day they’ll give you a gun.’

  ‘I have a gun.’ He sounded irritated. ‘I have three guns. I’m in a Salmson 2.’

  ‘I’m sure it’s still important work,’ the other man said, smirking. ‘Even if you never get to fire them. We need people who can – what is it you do? Fly over things and look at them?’

  The others laughed.

  ‘We have a huge army that would hardly know what to shoot at if I didn’t tell them.’ Didier thumped the arm of his chair. ‘It is important work.’ That only brought more laughter. ‘I’m going to get more coffee.’

  He pushed his chair back, stood up and walked inside. The word hunters followed.

  Lexi took the photo of Grandad Al from her basket. ‘Have you seen this man?’

  Didier glanced at the photo. ‘With that foolish hat? In Paris? I don’t think so.’ He tried to attract the attention of the staff, but they were looking the other way. He tapped a coin on the counter.

  Al felt scuffling in his backpack as Doug clambered to the top, smelling buttery pastry, dark chocolate, almonds, sugar. He stepped back and swung his pack down, holding the flap shut. He found a broken corner of croissant on the floor and posted it under the flap.

  ‘That’s it,’ he whispered. ‘That’s all they’ve got here. People have eaten the rest.’

  Will stepped up to the counter next to Didier. ‘I agree it’s important work, finding the targets. The most important.’

  Didier looked him up and down. What he saw was a man who could fight, but who wasn’t in uniform. ‘And why should I care about what you think?’

  ‘Only one reason,’ Will said. ‘The shells landing on Paris today are coming from a gun a long way north of the city. Someone will be a hero for locating it exactly. We can take you to it. You can be the one who finds it.’

  Didier looked doubtful. ‘We? I take three people up in my Salmson for a tour of the front because you tell me – when no one else in Paris has any idea – that you know exactly what’s going on out there? Why should I—’

  ‘Because we’ve come through the lines near Soissons this morning. We know where the gun is. We were bringing the news to General Petain, but the Germans launched a new offensive at dawn and he’s left the city.’ Will could remember it well. It was 21 March and Jack Campbell from three doors down his street was last seen that morning, at the start of the biggest bombardment of the war. ‘I can either give this information to a colonel, who will give it to someone else, who will—’ He shrugged. ‘Or I can find someone who can act on it now.’

  Didier nodded. ‘Some of those colonels do a lot of talking.’

  At that moment another shell landed just down the street. The glass in the cafe windows shook. Debris blew past outside. Women screamed and the pilots at the tables ducked.

  ‘Let the colonels talk,’ Lexi said. ‘Someone has to do something. Before too many people are hurt, before there’s too much panic. Paris will celebrate the pilot who stops it.’

  Didier thought about it for a second. ‘I’ll do it for Paris, not for any celebration.’ He put his coin back in his pocket. ‘Do you know how easy it is to get a medal for shooting down planes and how hard it is to get one for spotting targets? Don’t people know that the bullets the Germans shoot at you are just the same?’

  Didier was their man.

  He didn’t even talk to the other pilots on his way out. The word hunters followed him to the street, where he stepped in front of the traffic and held up a hand.

  ‘I am commandeering this truck for the war effort,’ he said to the driver who had stopped a few centimetres in front of him.

  They had an argument about the importance of the truck driver’s potatoes to the war effort, but Didier waved the word hunters on board even as the driver was speaking. They climbed up and crouched among the potato sacks, while Didier sat in front and gave the driver far more directions than he needed.

  They passed through the suburbs of Paris, through markets and streets crowded with houses and then past gardens and farms and patches of forest. As they came to a high wire fence a plane flew overhead, just above the treetops. It looked no sturdier than a box kite and sounded like a lawn mower.

  For Al it was like coming face to face with World War I for the first time. Paris had been Paris, despite the soldiers and the shelling, but there in the sky was a man off to war this minute, peering through his goggles and past his machine gun. Soon the word hunters would be up there, too, and maybe on their way to Grandad Al. He’d heard of the long-range German guns, but couldn’t recall seeing a picture, in books or online or among Grandad Al’s sketches.

  ‘Hey!’ He bumped Lexi’s knee. ‘Grandad Al never drew this.’ There were plenty of drawings they’d found that Al still couldn’t place – bearded kings, ships with two rows of oars, crumbling chapels, odd devices – but none of artillery pieces. ‘There’s no picture at home of the Kaiser Wilhelm or any other big gun. But we know he came here.’

  ‘He didn’t draw everything.’ Lexi thought about it. ‘Maybe he didn’t get home from this one. Maybe this is it.’ For a second, the idea of finding Grandad Al had never seemed more real. Then she saw another plane through the fence, bumping along the ground, taxiing on its way to take off. On its way to the war. ‘I hope he’s okay.’

  She imagined him shot down on his flight to the gun, or lost in the trenches, or captured by the Germans. She tried to force those thoughts from her head. There was no limit to the bad things that might have happened, but they needed to hope they hadn’t. They were going to a war again and they needed to get that right to have any chance of finding Grandad Al.

  The guards at the gate saluted Didier, when they saw him in the cab of the truck. The driver hardly slowed down. Didier made him take them all the way to his plane, before letting him get back to delivering his potatoes.

  The ease of it made no sense to Lexi and Al. There was a war close by, but there were far fewer security checks than they would have to go through just to get to Sydney in the 21st century. The guards knew Didier, though, and he was an officer and that seemed to be enough.

  Didier’s plane looked to Al like a classic World War I biplane. Its wings were joined by struts and wires, its wheels looked like they had come from a wheelbarrow and the shape of the bones of its wooden frame could be seen through the canvas that had been stretched over it. It hardly looked safe to fly at all. It looked like a mad inventor had built it out of verandah railings, a Hills hoist and a shopping trolley.

  Lexi stopped and stared at it. ‘Seriously?’

  Will had already walked over to it. ‘It’s a fine-looking machine.’ He put his hand up to the canvas. ‘These are new, aren’t they?’

  ‘Late last year.’ Didier stroked the wooden propeller with his gloved hand. ‘This one’s three weeks old. They replaced the Dorand. We sold those to the Americans.’ He laughed. ‘These are 40 kilometres an hour faster. You can almost see that just to look at it. Good with a load as well.’ He turned around to size up Lexi and Al. He looked like he was calculating something. ‘We’ll have you two instead of bombs. It’ll work. Fuel, ammunition, the four of us, yes. All under 500 kilos. The tall one gets the gunner’s seat. And navigates. You’d better be serious about knowing where this thing is.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I know.’ Will was looking up at the cockpit. ‘Are those Lewis guns with the cooling shroud taken off? Am I going to get to use them?’

  ‘Maybe. Maybe not.’ Didier treated it as if it was no big deal. ‘You’ll need to watch for fighters. See? This job takes courage after all.’

  ‘So we’re—’ Al wasn’t looking forwa
rd to being boxed up inside.

  ‘Inside, yes.’ Didier indicated the lower part of the fuselage.

  ‘I’m really better if I see the horizon.’

  ‘He’s no good either way,’ Lexi said. ‘And Will knows where we’re going.’

  Didier held out his hand for her so that she could climb onto the wing and into the rear cockpit. She ducked down and moved forward, as he told her to, and wedged herself and her basket between the two seats. Al climbed in next and lowered himself feet first into the fuselage behind the gunner’s seat. The plane narrowed the further back he went and he knew he’d never get comfortable on the timber and nuts and bolts. Then Will’s feet came in and went either side of his head.

  ‘Loving the plan so far,’ Al said to Will’s right foot, moving his arm just enough to give a thumbs-up.

  Didier called a mechanic over and even inside the body of the plane they could feel him swinging the propeller to get it started. On the fourth try the engine coughed into life and the entire plane started to vibrate. Al felt every bump as Didier opened up the engine and the plane stumbled and then rushed across the ground. Their heads rang with the noise of the engine and the air smelt of burnt fuel.

  There was a lurch and they were up.

  Lexi and Al could just make out Will shouting at Didier and telling him to go north. They knew they were over allied territory at first, but there was no way to know when that had changed. Didier had given Will a map and from time to time Will shouted directions about following a train line or a road, or looking out for a particular town.

  Will kept twisting in his seat to look at the ground ahead so that he could make sense of where they were. Every time he did it he was conscious that he wasn’t looking out behind them for enemy fighters. He tried to remember precisely what they looked like from front on and how to tell them from British, French or American planes. He swung his machine guns around lining clouds up in the sights.