Berlin had just taken off his overcoat when Hargraves walked in holding a thick manila folder. ‘Nice coat.’ He tossed the folder onto Berlin’s desk. ‘I tried telephoning you at home, but your landlord said you’d already left. Early bird catches the worm, eh?’
Berlin recognised the case by the file number. ‘They’re back?’
‘Looks like it. That top sheet is all we’ve got at this stage. The loco sheds payroll at Wodonga this time. They tried to slip the cash in a day early but the buggers were waiting. Early bird got that worm, too.’
‘Sure it was the same gang?’
Hargraves shrugged. ‘Looks like it. Railways payroll, five blokes wearing balaclavas and carrying Tommy guns, riding jungle-green Harley-Davidsons with sidecars. Which is why you are off to lovely Wodonga to get this sorted.’
‘Why aren’t the Wangaratta police handling this one?’
‘The Wangaratta boys have been made to look like fools by these bastards and the press is starting to pick up on the story. The top brass are pretty pissed off and heads are going to roll if something’s not sorted quick smart.’
Berlin picked up the folder. ‘Shouldn’t this be Chater’s case?’
‘Wedding’s on Saturday.’
The father of Chater’s seventeen-year-old girlfriend had angrily bailed up the detective outside Russell Street a few weeks back and Chater had glumly announced his upcoming nuptials two days later.
‘I’ll go home and pack a bag and take the next train from Spencer Street.’
Hargraves shook his head. ‘Fraid not, sunshine. The deputy commissioner doesn’t want the leads on this one going cold, so you’re flying up to Albury. There’s a plane leaving Essendon Aerodrome in twenty-five minutes but they’ll hold it for you.’
‘I don’t have any clothes … my razor.’
‘Buy what you need up there and put in a chit. That shirt looks clean enough, should do you a day or two more.’
‘I’ve only got a few quid on me and my bank won’t be open for a couple of hours.’
‘This isn’t a fucking holiday, Berlin! This is the deputy commissioner saying you get your arse on that plane in twenty bloody minutes! I thought a flyboy like you would jump at the chance to get up in the air again.’
‘I’m on my way.’ Berlin picked up the file off the desk and reached for his hat and coat, avoiding eye contact. His heart was pounding, his mouth was dry and he didn’t want Hargraves to see the fear he knew was in his eyes.
Hargraves called after him. ‘Someone will meet you at Albury Aerodrome when you land and run you back over the bridge to Wodonga. Report to the local sergeant when you get there, name’s Corrigan. And keep in touch, Berlin. We don’t want you disappearing off into the wild blue yonder.’
As he headed down the stairs Berlin held the file in his right hand. His left hand was in his jacket pocket, fingers clenched tightly around the empty Benzedrine inhaler.
FOUR
The police driver dropped Berlin next to a shiny silver twin-engine aircraft parked on the tarmac. The driver had used the siren on the way out, weaving in and out of traffic and cursing other motorists who didn’t move out of his way quickly enough. A man in his mid-twenties was leaning on the metal steps by the passenger door at the rear of the aircraft, smoking. He was wearing aviator sunglasses and an American-style zip-up leather flying jacket. When he dropped his half-smoked cigarette on the tarmac Berlin had to resist the ingrained POW urge to pick up and pocket the butt.
‘You must be the cop,’ the man said.
‘I guess the police car was a bit of a giveaway.’
‘Nothing gets past me, sport.’ He put out his hand and introduced himself. ‘I’m Reg. I’m your pilot.’
Berlin shook his hand. ‘The name’s Charlie.’
‘You got any luggage there, Charlie?’
Berlin held up the manila folder.
‘In that case we probably should hit the frog and toad.’
Berlin started to walk around the aircraft, checking the tyres and elevators and looking at the tarmac under the engines for any signs of leaking oil.
Reg was watching him. ‘I’ve already done a pre-flight check, mate. All the bits we need are attached, trust me. I’m going to be up there with you, remember.’
Berlin looked up. ‘Force of habit, sorry.’
‘You a pilot?’
‘I used to be. Wellingtons and Lancs. In England.’
‘That must have been fun. How many ops?’
‘Twenty-nine,’ said Berlin, ‘and a half.’
‘Been up since?’
‘Nope.’
Reg studied Berlin’s face. He knew that look, he’d seen it in other airmen’s eyes – men who were convinced they’d used up all their luck and their next flight would be their last.
‘Here’s the story, Charlie. I flew cargo and paratroopers in the islands for four years, so believe me, I’m a pretty good pilot and my co-pilot’s no slouch either. As to the kite, she’s an RAAF surplus Dakota. Daks are easy to fly and tough as buggery.’
‘That’s what I’ve heard, Reg.’ The skies over England had been filled with Dakotas, the military version of the DC3 used for general transport, assault glider towing, and the dropping of supplies and paratroops.
‘Plus we’ve got a mechanic who doesn’t cut corners.’
Berlin studied the lines of the aircraft. ‘She looks in good nick.’
‘You bet, she’s only got a couple of thousand hours on her. Ex-VIP transport plane, which saved me a packet on the fit-out.’
‘Let’s do it.’ Berlin said the words with more confidence than he felt.
Inside, the Dakota was luxury compared with his old Lancaster. The ten passenger seats were thickly padded leather and looked very comfortable. Berlin followed Reg up the narrow sloping aisle.
‘Not many passengers this morning, Charlie, so you can have any seat you fancy.’
The only other person in the passenger cabin was a blonde sitting in the rear. She was smoking Craven A cork tips and reading the Women’s Weekly. Berlin chose the front right seat and carefully did up his seat belt. Through the open cockpit door he watched Reg and his co-pilot check the instruments. Two pilots – typical of American-built aircraft. What bloody luxury, he thought.
The RAF was miserly with its crewing of heavy bombers. By day the American B17s, with their multiple 50-calibre defensive armament and two pilots on board, pounded the Germans, but by night it was the RAF Lancs and Halifaxes, with their bigger bomb loads, smaller crews and solo pilots, doing the pounding. RAF flight engineers sat on fold-down seats next to the pilots to help with the throttles and instruments during the critical take-off phase, but after that the pilots were on their own.
The logic of the single-pilot policy was that every pilot trained meant one more aircraft over the target. A two-man cockpit crew was judged to be simply a waste of resources, since the night-fighter cannon shells or exploding flak that would kill or maim one pilot would almost certainly do the same to a man sitting a couple of feet to his right.
The Dakota’s twin Pratt & Whitney rotary engines whined and spluttered, missing several times before coughing throatily into life and then settling into a solid, comforting rhythm. The sound was nothing like the chorus of the four V12 Merlins on Berlin’s Lancaster, but his mouth was dry as it had been every time he’d waited for the ground crew to pull the chocks away from the tyres so he could begin the long taxi out to the runway.
Reg was as good a pilot as he claimed and their take-off was smooth and uneventful. Once the aircraft levelled off, the woman who had been sitting in the back brought Berlin coffee in an enamel mug. There was chicory in the coffee concentrate, and sweetened condensed milk helped cut the bitterness.
‘I’m Valmae. I’m Reg’s fiancée.’ She was wearing one-piece mechanics coveralls dyed black. ‘Sorry about the awful coffee, but it’s all we can get.’
‘I’ve had worse.’
Valmae handed him a grey woo
llen blanket. ‘In case you get a bit chilly when we get up higher. It might be a bit itchy, I’m afraid – army surplus.’ She smiled. ‘I think you and I are the only things on board that aren’t military surplus, Mr Berlin.’
‘It’s just you, Valmae.’
‘Call me Val. I thought the police was a reserved occupation?’
‘We were actively encouraged not to enlist but my brother was with the Eighth. He went missing after Singapore fell and I thought I ought to do something.’
‘He come home?’
Berlin shook his head. ‘Army still can’t trace him. He was in a military hospital sick as a dog with malaria when the Japs took over and that’s the last anyone heard of him.’
‘That’s tough, Mr Berlin, I’m sorry. But at least you’re back and in one piece.’
‘That’s right, Val,’ Berlin said, ‘At least I’m back.’
‘And you flying with us today means Reg & Val’s Trans-Continental Airways lives to fly another day.’
‘Business a bit slow?’
‘You could say that. Reg loves flying. Before the war he was a sales clerk in Myer’s shoe department, and he can’t go back to that life. But there’s a lot of cheap aeroplanes around, and even more pilots.’
‘Ex-military types like Reg?’
‘Yep. We have to fight for every passenger and parcel. Reg thinks maybe we should move to Broken Hill or the Alice. Or maybe Asia.’
‘Sometime it’s hard to find your place in the world again, Val.’
‘Yes, that’s what Reg says. You’ll let me know if I can get you anything else, won’t you.’
Berlin nodded and Val went back to organise coffee for the crew.
That was another problem with war, what came after. Some men came home with skills that could easily translate into civilian life, and others didn’t. Some men wanted nothing more than to go back to the life they’d known before, and others were hooked on a thirst for adventure or the constant adrenalin rush of danger. These were men who had been trained to take and to hold, and to efficiently kill anyone who got in their way – skills essential to survival in Rommel’s and Monty’s North African desert or the rotting green hell of New Guinea, but ill-suited to a civvies’ life with the war two years done.
Berlin glanced out the window at the wispy, low cloud and the patchwork of fields far below. Around five thousand feet, he estimated. He wondered if Reg would be following the railway line to Albury. Berlin had taken that trip once, by train from Melbourne to Sydney and then on to Brisbane to board a troopship. And he knew the stops to Wodonga by heart now from the recent spate of robberies along the northern line: Tallarook, Seymour, Euroa, Violet Town, Benalla, Wangaratta, Barnawartha.
He picked up the manila folder. The top sheet was a single-page typed report on the Wodonga loco sheds pay office robbery. Transcribed from a telephone call with the local police, there was enough detail to confirm it was the same gang responsible for the dozen or so other robberies briefly outlined in the file. Five masked men riding motorcycles and armed with submachine guns had carried out the raids, all targeting Victorian Railways office payrolls.
Coincidentally, many of the robberies had taken place in areas where the Kelly gang had run wild almost seventy years before. This Kelly-country link and the way the gang ran rings around the police was starting to give them a larrikin appeal to a public starved of adventure since the end of the war. Their last raid had been at Glenrowan, over a month ago, and while the local cops may have taken Ned Kelly down at Glenrowan in 1880 they were having a lot less luck these days.
The gang was ruthlessly efficient, Berlin had to give them that. So far no one had been killed, and until this morning no one had been injured. The gang leader usually fired warning bursts of submachine-gun fire into the air to ensure compliance, but this time it looked like the paymaster had decided to be a hero and then it had been on for young and old.
A piece of flimsy, onion-skin foolscap paper was stuck to the back of the report. It was a memo from the deputy police commissioner to the state premier. The typed letters were in faded blue, indicating it was a third or fourth carbon copy. The head of the railways wanted the robberies resolved quickly and the deputy police commissioner was guaranteeing results. The name ‘Hargraves’ was handwritten at the top in the purple ink favoured by the deputy commissioner and the words ‘heads will roll’ were underlined.
Berlin recognised Hargraves’ scrawl on the bottom of the page. It was a list of detectives and all the names had been crossed through except for Berlin’s. Had it been left in the file by accident or had Hargarves included the underlined memo on purpose? Berlin wondered.
After a battlefield retreat early in World War I, French officers selected a half-dozen soldiers at random and had them shot by firing squad in front of their battalion. Pour encourager les autres, ‘to encourage the others’, was the rationale.
Either way it was obvious to Berlin that his head was on the chopping block and he didn’t like his chances of solving the case in a hurry. He didn’t know a single soul in Wodonga and detective work was all local, all about knowing who the bad boys were and having a stable of reliable fizzes – underworld informants who were always ready and willing to sell out a friend or accomplice for a fiver, or a chance to duck a court appearance or avoid a belting in the police cells.
They hit turbulence over Benalla. Through the open cockpit door he could see Reg with his hands on the joystick, fighting to keep the Dakota under control. The aircraft jerked and shuddered, buffeted by swirling winds and sudden downdrafts that smacked hard into the fuselage like a blow from a fist.
Berlin’s fingers closed around the empty Benzedrine inhaler in his pocket. It was hard for him to imagine he had once sat in the front seat of an aircraft even bigger than this and held the controls, skilfully guiding his lethal cargo to its point of delivery. It was a different place and a different time. And I was a different man, he said to himself.
FIVE
The Royal Air Force had Charlie Berlin and twenty-eight thousand or so young volunteers like him on loan from the Australian government for the duration of the war. And Berlin, like the rest of them, had what he felt was a perfectly reasonable fear of dying.
While the RAF may have agreed that it was reasonable to be afraid of dying, to talk about it or do anything to avoid it was considered a sign of LMF, or Lack of Moral Fibre, and this wasn’t tolerated. People who displayed LMF quickly disappeared and were only ever spoken of again in hushed whispers. LMF could manifest itself in suspicious physical injuries that took a pilot off flying duties, a flight engineer weeping in the Chaplin’s office or an air gunner bailing out, unordered and unseen, over enemy territory, preferring to live out the war in a POW camp than be blown to pieces by the cannon shells of a German night fighter or burnt to death trapped inside a plexiglass turret.
The day-to-day routine in a Bomber Command squadron swung wildly between life and death. Between operations the men trained at their various specialities, attended briefings on how to survive ditchings in the freezing waters of the Channel and listened to airmen who had escaped German captivity. They heard the airmen describe what would happen should they have to bail out over enemy territory, and wind up in the dreaded aircrew interrogation rooms of Dulag Luft in Frankfurt.
For off-duty airmen there were movies, drinks in the mess or at the local pub, and sometimes leave passes to London. To expend their youthful energy, there was football or cricket, carnal wrestling with the station WAAFs or rolling in the hay with lusty Land Army girls, who were kept slim and fit by long days harvesting crops and tending sheep and cattle.
Then there would be a phone call from HQ, or a motorcycle despatch rider would race through the station gates, and an op would be called – and suddenly everyone understood that this might be their last day on earth. In a few hours’ time they would be sitting high over Germany on top of ten thousand pounds of high explosives and a couple of thousand gallons of petrol with massed ant
i-aircraft guns and night fighters shooting at them.
After briefings and preparations sleep was impossible, so kitted out for twenty thousand feet, they laughed and joked in the crew-ready room and casually filled their thermoses with coffee while hiding their terror. Some prayed or wrote letters home, and all were keyed up and exhausted by the time the green GO signal was flashed from the control tower. Dozens of idling Merlin engines were throttled up and the bombers began rolling through the twilight, taxiing to the long, undulating concrete runway and what lay beyond.
So the aircrew put on brave faces, stuck out their chests, kept their chins up, maintained stiff upper lips and, in a state of outer physical rectitude and inner mental turmoil, soldiered on. Many coped by drinking too much, whoring, fighting, gambling and driving fast cars. Some coped by visiting the station medical officer for pharmaceutical solace. Air-force research had suggested the amphetamine Benzedrine provided the ideal mix of optimism and aggression for aircrew to achieve peak efficiency in prolonged periods of stress. Benzedrine pills were readily available from the station medical officers for those in need of a little more alertness, improved reaction times and increased stamina, and for those wanting to feel that perhaps death wasn’t an inevitability. Some took these wakey-wakey pills occasionally, and others took all they could and then raided their escape kits for more when the MOs cut off their supply, worried by signs of excessive aggression or unrealistically high spirits and mania.
After the war Berlin, like all the others, swore blind he had taken no pills and had made it through the terror on steely resolve and strong moral fibre. But this wasn’t strictly true, and after his fiancée dumped him he had gone back to the drug, using legal over-the-counter Benzedrine inhalers from the local chemist or pills freely available from his doctor. For those with the urge for something stronger, cocaine and morphine could be had at a price from St Kilda sly-grog merchants, although Berlin had resisted this temptation.
The Diggers Rest Hotel Page 2