The Diggers Rest Hotel

by Geoffrey McGeachin

  When the railways first came to Australia in the 1870s, New South Wales decided on the standard rail gauge of four feet eight and a half inches while Victoria chose the broader Irish gauge of five feet three inches. This became a problem when the lines reached Albury and Wodonga, and the incompatible gauges meant that passengers travelling between Melbourne and Sydney were forced into a mad scramble to change trains.

  Berlin remembered his midnight arrival at Albury station on his way to war. He remembered the soot and the steam and the confusion, the shrill note of the stationmaster’s whistle, and the squeal and clang of metal on metal as the railway carriages were shunted into position. Bleary-eyed soldiers, sailors and airmen hauling cumbersome canvas kitbags made their way across the windswept platform, stumbling and grumbling and cursing. Harried ladies behind the counter in the noisy refreshments room thrust cups of hot tea and soggy white-bread sandwiches and the infamous railway pies out into a sea of grasping hands.

  Just before the station the constable made a smooth right turn into a wide street bordered by low-rise stone buildings.

  ‘This is Dean Street, Mr Berlin, Albury’s main street.’

  Trucks, farm utes and the odd pre-war sedan were parked on both sides of the road and there were a few pedestrians, mostly women in floral dresses and a couple of men wearing suits and broad-brimmed hats.

  Roberts pointed over to the right. ‘That’s the best picture theatre, the Regent. There’s also a rollerskating rink and a couple of good dances on a Saturday night. There’s a lot of pretty girls in Albury.’

  ‘I’ll take your word for it.’

  Dean Street was as wide as Russell Street in Melbourne, but a lot quieter. It was midmorning so most of the men were at work, leaving the women to do the shopping. They passed some fine-looking pubs and a number of commercial buildings – substantial two- and three-storey brick constructions with wide awnings shading the footpaths. Several of the buildings boasted masonry towers, attesting to the financial success of insurance and pastoral companies and indicating that Albury was a town built on a solid economic base. The tower above the post office had a clock to mark the time, though no one on Dean Street seemed in much of a hurry to be anywhere.

  There was a slender white obelisk sitting high on a hill at the far end of the street. ‘What’s that thing?’

  ‘That’s the war memorial on top of Monument Hill. Built back in the twenties. It’s lit up at night and you can see it from most places in town.’

  Berlin stayed silent. He hated war memorials. He didn’t need to be reminded of the mates he’d lost.

  The road veered left, skirting a river. Berlin studied it: surprisingly wide, bordered by tall gum trees and willows with their drooping, leaf-laden branches skimming the grey-green surface of the swiftly moving water.

  ‘The mighty Murray.’

  Berlin was amused by the tone of pride in the constable’s voice.

  ‘You should go fishing if you get a chance, Mr Berlin. The river’s full of redfin and huge Murray cod and big freshwater crays you can pull out by the bucketful.’

  ‘Not much of a fisherman, I’m afraid.’

  The Dodge followed the curve of the road as it ran down towards the Murray and then they were on the bridge that crossed the river border between New South Wales and Victoria. The car rumbled across the thick wooden planks of the bridge, rattling the heavy metal bolts and startling a flock of waterbirds that took to the sky at the noise. They crossed over a second rattling bridge and then the town appeared.

  ‘Welcome to beautiful Wodonga, Mr Berlin. This is High Street. The police station is straight up ahead.’ Roberts shook his head. ‘Dean Street it isn’t.’

  Berlin had to agree. Wodonga had even more of a country town feel than its neighbour. Many of the shops lining the main street were of wooden construction and most were single storey, though with the same wide corrugated-iron awnings for shade. They passed the usual mix of haberdasheries, hardware stores, grocers and greengrocers, butchers with sawdust-covered floors and cafés with painted signs advertising mixed grills, light refreshments, Peters Ice Cream, Jusfrute cordials and soft drinks on ice.

  Berlin pointed to a tall concrete tower ahead in the distance. ‘Another war memorial?’

  ‘Water tower. Tallest thing in town, about a hundred feet high. Holds seventy-five thousand gallons. We’ve got that, a stock saleyard, a train station, one lousy picture theatre and not much else. Thank God Albury is just across the river.’

  ‘You’ve got yourselves an armed robbery.’

  Roberts smiled. ‘That’s right, I suppose things are looking up.’

  NINE

  Roberts made a right turn off High Street onto South Street, passing a small post office with a row of red telephone boxes out the front. He drove a short distance before parking the Dodge outside the fence bordering the loco sheds, in front of a mangled wire gate with a sign that read VICTORIAN RAILWAYS – NO ENTRY.

  A neat little two-door pre-war Austin 8 Tourer with a canvas soft-top was parked across the road. Berlin had seen a lot of vehicles like it in England, as well as the four-door hard-top model. The RAF used them as staff cars, painted matt grey-green with air-force roundels on the front mudguards. This Austin was in perfect condition, with sparkling chrome bumpers, a brand-new canopy and a shiny light grey paint job.

  Roberts led Berlin between large goods carriages, over a maze of crisscrossing steel railway lines. At the sound of a loud whistle the constable put out his hand and stopped Berlin. A locomotive hauling empty goods wagons lumbered past them in a cloud of steam and smoke. Berlin watched the thick wooden sleepers that supported the steel rails flex in their bed of stone ballast as the massive engine passed over them. From the cab of the locomotive a grim-faced man wearing denim overalls and a soft cap stared down at them, ignoring a friendly wave from Roberts.

  ‘Miserable-looking bastard,’ Berlin said after the last wagon had rattled past.

  ‘That’s Cec Champion. He’s got a right to be miserable, Mr Berlin. His oldest son was a commando – got captured in the islands and the Japs cut his head off with a sword. Someone took a photo and it turned up in the wallet of a dead Nip. It was in the papers a while back. Cec is a fireman – he shovels coal all day and drinks all night, poor bugger.’

  Berlin remembered seeing the photo in The Argus – a bunch of grinning Japanese soldiers holding rifles taller than themselves gathered around a kneeling blindfolded young lad. A soldier stood behind him, stripped to the waist and holding a long, curved sword in a two-handed grip. It was an image guaranteed to stop a father smiling forever.

  When the tracks were clear Roberts led the way across to the main section of the yards. The locomotives, the buildings and even the railway workers, with their oilcans and giant spanners, were the same shade of drab grey. Black ash and cinders crunched under Berlin’s feet as they passed stationary engines that sighed and groaned like great beasts and emitted irregular, sudden bursts of steam that swirled around the massive steel driving wheels.

  A tall, corrugated-iron building that reminded Berlin of an aircraft hangar housed a soot-blackened locomotive and tender and several other engines parked over deep pits. Further along the tracks another locomotive was being swung around on a giant turntable for the trip back to Melbourne. Behind the maintenance area was a long row of low buildings that housed administration offices and storerooms for freight. Roberts led Berlin towards a doorway surrounded by several uniformed police officers.

  A battered flyscreen door marked PAY OFFICE lay in the dirt, torn off its hinges. The policemen looked on while another man crouched down, examining the ground. The man was rangy and lean, his skin a shade of deep blue-black Berlin had never seen before. He was wearing a faded flannel shirt, old overalls and battered army boots. The sleeves had been ripped off the shirt and his arms were all muscle and sinew. Berlin watched as he carefully flicked ash and dirt aside with his index finger and tilted his head to one side to study the ground. B
erlin and Roberts joined the group just as the man stood up and shook his head.

  ‘No good, Boss. Tracks all mixed up long time. Too many policemans walk all round, bugger ’im up.’

  ‘Call yourself a fucking blacktracker, Jacky, you useless Abo bastard.’ The speaker wore a police uniform with sergeant’s stripes.

  Berlin saw a hard glint in the dark-skinned man’s eyes just before he smiled. The man’s teeth were startlingly white against his black face.

  ‘Jacky him no fucking blacktracker, Boss. I tell you, Jacky woodcutter. Dis blackfella him tree feller.’

  Berlin laughed at the joke and the group turned towards him. No one else seemed to get it.

  The black man’s eyes locked on Berlin’s for a brief moment. Then he broke his gaze, squatted back down and examined the ground some more.

  ‘Berlin, get your arse over here.’

  Berlin walked across to the sergeant, who slowly looked him up and down. Probably pushing forty, Berlin guessed, and pushing it hard. The red, perspiring face and protruding belly said the sergeant liked a good feed and the drink that went with it.

  ‘So you’re the DC sent up from town to show us how to do it? I’m Corrigan, and I’m in charge here.’ He pointed at the stripes on his sleeve to make his message clear. ‘And just so we understand each other, Berlin, you’re here under sufferance to investigate this robbery so I don’t want you giving me any trouble. Do your job as quick as you can, keep your trap shut and your nose out of things that don’t concern you and then bugger off back to the city.’ Corrigan pulled a wrinkled handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his face. Then he lifted his cap and ran the sweaty cloth over his bald head.

  ‘You’re the boss.’

  ‘You got that right, Berlin.’

  ‘And I’ll be more than happy to get out of your hair as soon as I possibly can.’

  Corrigan’s eyes narrowed slightly as he tried to work out from the tone of Berlin’s voice whether he was having a go at him.

  ‘Young Roberts you’ve met, and don’t you go teaching the boy any bad habits. Over yonder are constables Hooper and Eddy.’

  The two policemen nodded towards Berlin and then went back to watching the blacktracker. They both looked bored.

  ‘First Constable Hogan is minding the desk back at the police station. You’ll meet him later.’

  ‘I can’t wait.’

  Corrigan stared hard at the detective constable, trying to work out if he was taking the piss again but he couldn’t read his expression.

  ‘Any chance you can fill me in on what happened here, Sarge? And then I’d like to take a look at the damage, get an idea of the lay of the land.’

  The sergeant led him into the pay office, walking right over the broken screen door. Berlin took one last look around outside. Constables Hooper and Eddy were now leaning on a wall out of the sun, smoking and chatting, and Berlin saw the squatting blacktracker scoop something shiny from the dirt and casually pocket it. He glanced up and saw Berlin watching him.

  ‘Two bob, Boss. My lucky day, eh? Baccy money, okay?’

  Berlin shrugged. With several thousand pounds missing, who cared if some bloke scooped up a two-shilling coin from the dust.

  Inside the dingy, low-roofed office a couple of flyspecked bulbs in the ceiling illuminated three wooden desks and several cane-bottomed wooden swivel chairs. A grimy electric jug sat on a bench in one corner, near enamel mugs and a bag of sugar with a teaspoon in it. Flies buzzed noisily round the lip of a tin billycan half-full of milk. A massive Remington typewriter and an adding machine lay on the floor, amid a scattering of foolscap pages, buff pay envelopes, overturned inkwells and some shiny brass shell casings. Berlin’s nose wrinkled at the familiar smell of burnt gunpowder.

  ‘Made a right brothel of the place, didn’t they?’ the sergeant said. ‘Fancy a brew, Berlin? Roberts, get the water on, boy.’

  The young constable took the jug outside to look for a tap while Berlin studied the office.

  ‘Can you tell me what happened, Sarge?’

  ‘Not a lot to tell, really. Since the robberies, the paymaster’s been varying his routine from payday to payday – this time he wanted the payroll brought in a day early. So we got the cash out around five this morning, before the bank officially opened for business.’

  ‘Who’s we?’

  ‘Paymaster and his offsider, me and two constables.’

  ‘Armed?’

  ‘On payroll escort I always issue revolvers. And the paymaster had a little automatic, not that it did him any good. Anyway, we get here around quarter past five, drag the cash inside and then me and my boys head off home for breakfast. Right in the middle of my porridge there’s a phone call and by the time we get back here it’s all over.’

  ‘Nice timing.’

  ‘You can say that again. Five blokes on motorcycles, according to the paymaster’s offsider, army-style mechanic’s coveralls and Tommy guns. One of them fired a burst into the ceiling to get everyone’s attention.’

  ‘It would definitely do that.’

  ‘That’s the clerk’s version anyway, what he told Constable Hooper. The paymaster, name of Owen McGill, might say something different but he’s unconscious over at Albury Base Hospital.’

  ‘He get shot?’

  The sergeant shook his head. ‘No, but he made the mistake of going for his gun and then trying to tackle one of them. Knocked the bloody screen door off its hinges and they were rolling around outside in the gravel until one of the other bastards biffed McGill in the face with a gun butt.’

  ‘That must have hurt.’

  ‘Too damn right. If you stand on anything crunchy round here it might be one of his teeth. Silly bugger’ll be drinking Bonox for breakfast, lunch and tea for the next few months, they reckon.’

  ‘Where’s this paymaster’s assistant? I need to have a chat with him.’

  ‘Gone home, probably needed to change his trousers. His name’s Janeway. Roberts can organise for him to come in to the station for an interview.’ The sergeant smiled. ‘You’ll probably enjoy that. Now if you’ll excuse me I need to go and shake hands with the wife’s best friend.’

  There was a bulge in the back pocket of the sergeant’s trousers that even his jacket couldn’t hide. Probably more in need of a quick belt from that hip flask than a piss, Berlin guessed. Roberts came back with the jug and plugged it in.

  ‘Moody bastard, your sergeant.’

  ‘He’ll be better after …’

  ‘After he takes a leak?’

  Berlin had worked with a lot of coppers who were moody and irritable all morning until a quick visit to the dunny or a trip outside to ‘pick something up’ restored their equilibrium.

  Roberts put the billycan up to his nose, sniffed and grimaced. ‘Want me to pop over to the station tearooms and see if I can get us some fresh milk?’

  ‘That’d be good.’

  Alone in the office, Berlin scanned the room carefully. Something crunched under the piles of paper on the floor as he moved around. Teeth? he wondered. But when he bent down and lifted the papers he saw that he’d stepped on a pair of wire-rimmed glasses. Great, he thought, a bespectacled paymaster with a little automatic taking on bandits waving Tommy guns. That was never going to end well for the paymaster.

  The centre of the Masonite ceiling was blackened and pitted, probably from the burst of Tommy gun fire. Berlin studied it for a minute or two before turning his attention back to the floor.

  There was a lump under a scattered pile of pay envelopes near one of the desks. He moved the envelopes aside with the toe of his shoe, revealing the paymaster’s little automatic pistol. The gun was a .32-calibre Browning, compact but at close range quite deadly. As he bent over to pick it up, he heard footsteps outside the office. He straightened up and was slipping the automatic into his pocket when someone called from the doorway, ‘Hold it right there, copper.’

  Berlin turned towards the voice and was blinded by a brilliant white
flash.

  TEN

  Berlin’s hand tightened around the butt of the gun. His pupils had contracted at the brightness, and the figure in the doorway was only a silhouette at first. Slowly the details began to emerge. It was a woman and she was holding a camera with a round silver flash reflector mounted on one side.

  ‘Sorry, DC Berlin, too good a shot to miss.’

  The woman pressed a button on the back of the reflector and the used flashbulb fell to the floor. She was wearing high-waisted, loose-fitting trousers with a matching jacket, and a figure-hugging argyle jumper underneath. Berlin had never liked trousers on a woman. It might have been okay during the war, when women had to do men’s work, but all that business was over now.

  ‘And who the hell might you be?’

  There was a canvas satchel slung over the woman’s shoulder. She rummaged inside for something and Berlin used the time to study her face. She was slightly tanned, with shoulder-length auburn hair, full lips and prominent cheekbones. Probably in her mid-twenties, Berlin decided, and quite beautiful. His eyes dropped to her chest and when they came up again she was staring straight at him.

  ‘You just window-shopping or planning on making me an offer?’

  Berlin was taken off guard by her comment but recovered quickly. ‘I’m not in the market at the moment.’

  ‘If you say so, Charlie.’ She handed him a business card. ‘Or do you prefer Charles? Charles is a bit formal though, don’t you think?’

  ‘I prefer DC Berlin.’ He glanced at the card. ‘I didn’t know The Argus had women crime reporters, Miss … Green. Oh, I see – social diarist.’

  ‘You can call me Rebecca. And why can’t a woman cover crime?’

  ‘Sometimes things can get a bit ugly, Miss Green.’

  ‘I could tell you tales from the Melbourne social scene that would leave you white and shaking, DC Berlin. And I was up in Darwin when the Japs attacked the last time. I know what a person looks like when a bomb’s gone off on top of them.’