While the Moon Burns

by Peter Watt

  Gasping from exertion, Donald finally made the top and was startled when an Aboriginal man wearing the garb of a stockman rose and pointed an ancient Snyder rifle at him.

  ‘Hey, Billy! Don’t shoot,’ Tom’s voice called, just as another grenade exploded only a few yards from where Donald was crouching, causing him to fling himself in the crevice of two great rocks. Shrapnel spattered against the stones, flinging up chips around him.

  ‘What in the bloody hell are you doing here, Donald?’ Tom asked, half-rising from behind a small rock wall.

  ‘Came to give you a bit of fire support,’ Donald gasped, still getting his breath. ‘Have you got the billy on, because I could kill for a cup of tea.’

  Tom reached over with a broad smile on his face, spotting the Garand. ‘You certainly came prepared,’ he said, and Donald immediately passed the heavy rifle to him.

  ‘I figured you could do with this more than me, with the problems you have working the bolt on the three-oh. I’m better equipped to use your rifle.’

  Tom accepted the American rifle gratefully as it only required him to pull the trigger and reload when the magazine was empty. He passed his own gun to Donald with a bandolier of ammunition.

  Donald settled himself next to Tom whilst Billy moved back to his position between the rocks to observe the ground below.

  ‘I guess you were in that aeroplane I saw buzz the hill,’ Tom said, preparing the blackened billy for a brew in his fortified position, relatively safe from small arms fire. ‘What in hell are you doing here?’

  ‘I found out about my sister’s plan to evict you from Glen View,’ Donald replied. ‘Sean also briefed me there was a plan to bring in extra muscle, and I figured I should be here to keep an eye on Jessica’s old man. What have I missed?’

  Tom passed Donald a mug of steaming tea. ‘Just before first light Billy spotted a couple of the buggers trying to sneak up the hill. I opened fire and they ran back down the hill out of sight. Next thing Billy and I know, the bastards are lobbing grenades at us. Not sure how many of them are down there.’

  ‘At least four,’ Donald said, sipping the hot tea. ‘That’s about all I know – except they are probably under the command of a former Pommy copper, Edgar Johnson. Sarah will stop at nothing to get Glen View back.’

  ‘I kind of met Johnson,’ Tom said. ‘I should have put one between his eyes the last time he was here, but there were too many witnesses. How did you get here? Last I heard from Sean, you were in Concord Hospital after being wounded at Tarakan. I can see the Japs made a bit of a mess of your dial.’

  ‘I was able to get a lift on a B24 flying to Rockie,’ Donald said. ‘In Rockie I met a young newspaperman, and felt your armed stand to save your land was newsworthy for the national coverage it’ll get when the young fella has his story of the stand here published. No doubt it will peeve my sister when it becomes national news. By now Cyril should be back at the homestead having tea and scones, asking questions, and writing his story.’

  Tom held up the Garand rifle. ‘And what’s the story with this?’ he asked.

  Donald shrugged. ‘Fell off the back of a truck on the Sydney wharves. Along with around a hundred rounds of .30 cal.’

  Tom broke into a chuckle. ‘Pity a small mortar didn’t also fall off the same truck. We could do with some fire support to even up things up.’

  ‘We hold the high ground and that evens up the odds,’ Donald said. ‘I have a feeling they won’t try and take the hill in daylight now that you disturbed their plan to take you by surprise.’

  Tom agreed. Billy joined them, and the three men settled down for a meal of bully beef, biscuits and black tea.

  *

  ‘The bastard Paddy has the advantage, holed up there in the rocks,’ Moe said from the sparse shade of the scrub. ‘The grenades must have got him by now.’

  ‘Want to walk out and see if we got him?’ Curly said, spitting on the dry earth.

  Moe remained silent. Johnson’s party had already learned Tom was not alone. They had also seen Billy appear on the crest that day armed with a rifle.

  ‘He’s only got some blackfella with ’im,’ Larry said. ‘Niggers ain’t got the stomach to fight.’

  Johnson listened to the talk between his men. They were not over-endowed with intelligence, and he knew better than to underestimate his adversary. ‘I should remind you all that Duffy has Abo blood, and was a well-known sniper in the Great War. He also served with the infantry in this war up in New Guinea.’

  The men fell silent. Their boss had made a statement that contradicted their inborn bigotry against all people who were not Anglo-Saxon. The man who confronted them was part Irish, part Aboriginal – and a colonial to boot. A combination they deemed inferior, and yet, here they were, stuck at the bottom of the hill, impotent despite being armed with superior weapons.

  ‘When I get hold of that black bastard,’ Moe said, ‘I hope he’s still alive because I want to see him die a slow death.’

  The others nodded.

  ‘We try again at first light tomorrow morning as we seem to have lost the element of surprise,’ Johnson said. ‘But this time we’ll break up into two teams. Larry and I will give covering fire with the grenade launcher while you two,’ he said, pointing at Moe and Curly, ‘will make your way around to the right flank of the hill before the sun rises. You have your Tommys, and they should be more than enough to lay down heavy fire.’

  The three thugs listened to the plan but still looked uneasy. They agreed it was preferable to an all-out frontal assault against a defended position in broad daylight, and settled down for the day, waiting anxiously for the hours before dawn.

  *

  Parsons landed his aeroplane on the flat land in front of the Glen View homestead. When the dust settled he turned off the engine and both he and Cyril climbed out in the late-afternoon sunlight. Already a couple of nearby stockman had galloped over to the aircraft.

  ‘G’day, Mitch,’ Parsons said to the first horseman who arrived. Mitch was a tall and wiry man with a broken nose, and scars on his face from years of working with cattle in the scrub.

  Mitch dismounted and stared at the small aircraft. ‘What are you doin’ in these parts, Mr Parsons?’ he asked. ‘Who’s the joker with you?’

  Parsons introduced Cyril as a newspaperman from Rockhampton.

  Mitch stared at him curiously. ‘What are you doin’ out here?’ he asked.

  ‘It seems that Mr Macintosh, who we left on an old volcanic hill, thought there might be a story for our readers,’ Cyril said.

  ‘Which Macintosh?’ Mitch asked.

  ‘Lieutenant Donald Macintosh,’ Cyril replied.

  Mitch broke into a wide smile, ‘Bloody hell, young Macca is back.’ Mitch remembered Donald from his days on Glen View before the war. In fact, they had a stand-up knockdown fight in the round yard, and had become firm friends after the brawl. ‘I guess Mr Johnson doesn’t know he’s back, or he might have something to say.’

  ‘From what we saw when I did a flyover of the hill, it seems Mr Duffy is in a bit of trouble with a bunch of blokes shooting at him,’ Cyril said.

  ‘That would be bloody Johnson,’ Mitch growled. ‘One of the boys reported he thought he could hear the distant rumble of thunder from that direction.’

  ‘Could you give me something for the paper?’ Cyril asked eagerly. There was no doubt the trip had been worth it if a small war was being waged on the cattle station involving explosives of some kind.

  ‘About all I know is that the boys were tasked to go after scrub bulls on the edge of Glen View a couple of days ago. I was ordered to stay here with Bluey, and look after things around the homestead. I can see why now. The bastard was going after the boss with his three stooges.’

  ‘Why do you call them three stooges?’ Cyril asked.

  ‘Because they were introduced
to us as Larry, Moe and Curly,’ Mitch answered. ‘You could see they were city types straight off and a bad-looking bunch too. None of the boys took to them, and the rumours started in our quarters that they were hard men sent here to get rid of the boss.’

  ‘Didn’t that concern you?’ Cyril asked, surprised that men obviously loyal to Tom Duffy had done nothing.

  ‘Nah,’ Mitch said. ‘There were only four of ’em, and no match for Tom Duffy, even if he only has one arm. Now you say Donald has joined him, so we can expect to see Tom back here pretty soon.’

  Cyril was amazed by the stockman’s confidence. This was a strange land, far from the comforts of the coastal towns and cities. Cyril remembered the western movies he had seen at the local cinema, and wondered if he was now living in one. All he had to do now was get back to the hill where all the action was.

  *

  Night was arriving. A silence had fallen over the hill. The three defenders gathered together in a broad rock crevice to eat their dinner. It would be a cold meal as they knew a fire would mark their position. They ate bully beef from a can, and hard tack biscuits washed down with water.

  Donald noticed Billy had finished shaping a long hardwood spear, and had also carved a wooden club called a nulla nulla. He had stripped naked – except for his leather belt, into which he had tucked the wooden club.

  ‘What’s he up to?’ Donald asked Tom.

  ‘He thinks Wallarie has come to him with instructions and I’m not about to convince him otherwise,’ Tom replied. ‘He’s told me he’s going out tonight to have a look at the camp below.’

  ‘A bit dangerous,’ Donald said. ‘The gunfire this afternoon was coming from Thompsons. I know them well from my army service.’

  ‘Don’t underestimate Billy,’ Tom said. ‘He was with me up in the Gulf and is as good as any soldier I’ve served with.’

  Donald shrugged. When he turned to look around, Billy he was gone. It was as if he had become a shadow in the night.

  *

  Billy moved silently off the hill, aiming towards the campfire he could see burning in the scrub. They were careless, he thought. He could see all four men silhouetted by the light of the large fire. No sentries, and they were standing around confident that they had nothing to fear from those on the hill.

  He crept closer, treading carefully, calculating the distance between him and his prey. When he was around twenty yards out he rose from his crouch and balanced his spear in his hand, the woomera sling attached. Bringing back his arm he let the deadly twelve-foot missile go. It whirred through the night, and he saw it strike his intended target.

  ‘God almighty!’ Larry screamed as the spear entered his shoulder and drove through the flesh, its point exiting out his upper back.

  The sudden and completely unexpected attack caused the others to look about in terror, scrambling frantically to snatch up their firearms. Billy knew what to expect and dropped to the ground as a spray of bullets fired wildly, snapping spindly trees and ripping through the dry leaves above his head. They kept firing until the attached drums of ammunition were emptied, and smoke curled from the hot barrels.

  Billy immediately jumped his feet while the shooters changed magazines and ran expertly between the scrub, away from the enemy camp. Maybe it would cause them to stay awake all night, he mused as he let the night swallow him. Maybe Wallarie was watching and it had made him smile.

  *

  ‘Cor blimey,’ Larry moaned as his comrades propped him against the side of the truck. ‘It hurts like buggery. The black bastard has killed me.’

  ‘You’ll live,’ Johnson said. ‘Lucky for you, his aim was off, and the spear has passed through cleanly.’

  Johnson rummaged in the truck toolkit. The best he could find for a medical implement was a sharp axe.

  ‘Lay him down on his side,’ he ordered the other two, who seized Larry, forcing him on his side so the spear was now on the ground. With a swift motion Johnson brought down the axe, snapping off the section protruding from the front of Larry’s shoulder. Larry screamed in agony as the force of the strike moved the spear in his flesh, grating on nerves. He fainted, and Johnson bent down to grip the section sticking out of the back of the shoulder. He placed his foot on the wounded man’s shoulder and with a grunt slid what remained of the spear from his body. Blood flowed and Larry moaned as he regained consciousness.

  ‘It’s out,’ Johnson said to Larry, lying at his feet. ‘All you need now is to have your shoulder bandaged until we get you to a doctor.’

  Larry groaned and sweat poured from his ashen face as the other two men lifted him into a sitting position.

  ‘Give him a mug of rum,’ Johnson said. ‘That should help ease the pain.’

  ‘What are we going to do, Mr Johnson?’ Moe asked. ‘The buggers are out there just waiting to spear us all to death.’

  ‘There was only one of them,’ Johnson replied calmly. ‘And I doubt he’ll be back tonight. We stick with our plan.’

  ‘I am Wallarie,’ a voice called from out of the darkness. ‘I will come for all of you whitefellas tonight.’

  Immediately the unnerved thugs fired in the direction of the voice until Johnson yelled to cease fire. They were wasting valuable ammunition as Johnson suspected the Aboriginal man was well out of effective range of the submachine guns.

  None of the men at the base of the hill slept that night. They took turns at sentry duty as their comrade moaned in pain, unsettling the camp with his suffering.

  *

  Donald saw the shadowy figure emerge from the night.

  ‘Don’t shoot, boss,’ Billy said.

  ‘I strongly suspect you caused all that racket down the hill,’ Tom said with a grin, passing his friend a mug of cold, sweetened tea.

  ‘Speared one of the buggers,’ Billy grinned, accepting the mug. ‘But he still alive. Bloody spear a bit off, and got him in the shoulder.’

  Tom slapped Billy on the back. ‘Well done, warrior,’ he said. ‘Maybe Wallarie really guided your hand.’

  ‘Nah,’ Billy said, drinking his cold tea. ‘If Wallarie speared him, he would be dead. Just old Billy throw the spear.’

  Soon, the sun would rise. Donald felt for the rifle by his side. It would be modern European weapons that would decide the next few hours, not spears. Johnson still had overwhelming firepower on his side.

  SEVENTEEN

  Okinawa had changed considerably, thought Captain James Duffy, as he stepped from his transport aircraft onto the tarmac shimmering under a tropical sun. No longer was there the background gunfire of a bloody war being waged inland; now the island now was taking on the look of a well-occupied American shanty town.

  ‘Welcome back, Captain Duffy,’ said a senior NCO, jumping from a jeep. ‘The boys will be pleased to hear that our favourite officer has come home his real pals.’

  ‘Thanks, Sergeant Walsh,’ James said, hefting his seabag on his shoulder and stepping into stride alongside the armourer who had been responsible for arming James’s Corsair with bullets, bombs and rockets when he had conducted ground support missions months earlier.

  ‘You’ve come back at a bad time,’ Walsh said, getting behind the wheel of the jeep as James threw his kitbag in the rear. ‘Not much action with our squadron except patrolling against kamikaze, and very few of them lately. But we heard scuttlebutt that we’ll be supporting the landings when we go up against the Japs in the invasion. We expect to lose a few of the bent-wing birds over the beaches.’

  ‘Thanks, Walsh,’ James said with a twisted smile. ‘I just get off the flight from States side, and you tell me I probably won’t have much time to live.’

  ‘No, skipper,’ the sergeant said. ‘It’ll be the other poor son of a bitch who’ll get killed. You’re like a goddamned cat with nine lives. I don’t know how you got out of the last crash.’

  ‘I think I
used my ninth life,’ James said as the vehicle conveyed them to their squadron lines, passing men stripped to the waist playing touch football in the heat, or lazing around in makeshift chairs and soaking up the sun.

  James went through the ritual of reporting in, being interviewed by his commanding officer and briefed on his duties. He was then allocated living quarters, sharing a room in a hut only recently constructed.

  His roommate was another captain, but part of the ground crew administration. ‘Brett Hardy, out of California,’ he said, extending his hand. ‘You have the misfortune of sharing some sack space with me until the other huts are finished.’

  ‘James Duffy, out of New Hampshire,’ James said, shaking the man’s hand. ‘How long have you been here?’

  ‘Just got in a week ago,’ Hardy said. ‘I was pushing to get a combat posting in the Pacific, but by the time I got here it was just about all over. So, all a signals officer can do here is shifts in the radio shack. I’ve heard about you through some of the boys who served with you earlier in the war. Aren’t you the flyer who shot down five Jap Zeroes a few years back while flying a Dauntless dive bomber?’

  ‘It was three,’ James said with the hint of a smile. ‘And one of them crashed himself.’

  ‘Goddamned good to shake the hand of a real hero,’ Hardy said, a tone of respect in his voice. ‘I was at college when you did that. It was the talk of the campus.’

  ‘Yeah, well, that feels like a hundred years ago now,’ James said, sitting down on the edge of his bed.

  ‘That reminds me,’ Hardy said. ‘A parcel arrived for you yesterday. I put it in your locker.’

  James stood up and went to the grey metal closet by his bed and found the parcel just a little bigger than a large envelope. He opened it without looking at the sender’s address and found a folded handkerchief along with a short letter.