by Peter Docker
I’m grabbing The Sarge by the shoulders. ‘Where is the girl?’
He goes to sheath his blade but I grab at it.
‘What have you done?’
‘Wha’d you think I was gonna do? Why did we draw straws?’
‘We’ll leave her.’
‘She’s gone. They’re all gone. Let’s fucken go!’
I punch The Sarge right between the eyes. He goes backwards, and falls, and I jump on him. He punches me, knocking me off him, and his blade comes for me. I smash him with my weapon, right as he slashes at me, opening up a big cut in my leg. My weapon goes flying, and I pull out my knife, and jump on him. With his massive strength, he gets to standing, with me hanging on. Up close, I see that his eyes aren’t just weeping – but tearing themselves apart from the inside.
‘Conway...’ he starts, and before he can stab me, I stab him, my blade going right into his guts. Goes in deep. We’re standing, hugging like brothers at a funeral, and his blade with her blood and mine, drops to the dirt floor.
‘Finish me, brother,’ he whispers.
My blade flashes across his throat. His body slides down mine. The cannon fire is smashing into the outside of the building. I turn and run. Outside it is chaos. I have to get to the FE posi. I take a chance and sprint across the open ground. I am almost there when I start to draw fire. I go down into the entrance at full sprint, and trip over something in the dark. The door to the dug-in donga is open, and I go sprawling and sliding into the room.
‘Report?’ I yell.
‘Mort.’
‘James.’
‘Down!’ I scream.
I yank the control from my webbing and hit FE. Outside, everything we set goes off, and the explosions chuck us around inside that donga like a handful of gravel. I’m bleeding from the mouth and I’ve lost my weapon. I switch on my torch to find it, and then me, Young James, and Mort – we see them all. All the women and kids The Sarge grenaded.
I go back up the sloping entrance to where I fell. I am still on my hands and knees. Then I see what I tripped over. The Sarge had cut her throat.
‘Come, brother!’ yells Mort, and he gets us all moving.
We go up and run for the pathway we cut through their wire earlier on. There is still one AFV on the far side of the battered compound, trying to negotiate a path through the debris to our position. Not to our position, but to that donga. Mort urges us on, running, running, as though I could outrun these demons that are now swirling all around me. In the distance, we hear the attack choppers.
Thirty-four: Keeping Enemies Close
It feels like early morning. Hard to tell exactly what time it is in our windowless metal box. Time is a trick, anyway. Like history, and genetics, and skin pigment. Mularabone and I sit on my cot with our boots on, holding hands. After the shared dream, we haven’t slept. We have sat, holding hands like we are conducting a sorry business vigil. With the darkness and the silence, and the touch of our hands, skin on skin, we have cocooned ourselves in our hope for understanding and acceptance.
‘Why didn’t you tell me, coorda?’
‘Shame, brother.’
Eventually our hands disengage, and Mularabone goes back over to his own cot.
‘Hurry up and wait’ – The Sarge taught us that lesson well. Not that we have any routine to do in our cell. No water to wash with. No food to eat. No shaving gear. No weapons to clean. Just our boots. And our UV paste. Mularabone hands me a small woven bag, ingeniously lined with plastic and filled with the secret paste made by Aunty Ouraka. The Countrymen aren’t caught up on who caused the ozone depletion, just the reality of dealing with it. Mularabone and I have heard it is much worse down south.
I give my exposed skin a good coating, my nostrils flaring at the sharp smell of the herbs. Like a surgeon washing hands before an operation, my digits move over all my exposed skin in a strict pattern, replicating that ancient journey of the ancient creator spirits of the land, painstakingly taught to me by Mularabone when we were still young. Without the commitment to the spiritual protection, the science will never work. Us Djenga have had to relearn that in this Country. When Aunty Ouraka applies the UV paste, she sings the soul protection charm. For her the charm is more powerful than the science. I see them as equal, maybe even the same thing. Any mistake can mean a black blister that won’t go away for years, or even a slow painful death as all your flesh is sucked and burnt inward through the tiny black blister.
My head is already scarred up from that trooper’s broken bottle, from watching the footy with me mates, so it isn’t vanity for me, just basic survival. We sit on our thin unforgiving beds with our paste on.
Neither of us took our boots off to sleep. Neither of us would’ve been remotely surprised if we’d been dragged out in the middle of the night for interrogation, or brainwashing, or gender reassignment, or just plain old-fashioned torture. Human beings behave very strangely when given absolute power over other humans. My father taught me this. Maybe strange, maybe predictable.
I sit in half-lotus, and stretch myself out along the length of my bed. I love the feel of those back muscles stretching away from my hips. I wriggle my toes in my boots. My feet always feel like they shrink a little overnight when I sleep with my boots on, and I awake to this turtle-in-a-shell feeling, until I can get the blood flowing through them again. My forearm still aches from where Mularabone cut me with his bone knife.
Where we are going I have only visited in dreams of future past. Whilst I can guess what the Djenga want from me, I have no way of knowing what the Country may demand. I have dreamed of the birth of the thriving new culture, with the best of the Europeans and Countrymen swimming together in the pot. I feel lighter after the shared dream memory, as though the weight of my shame has been shared with my brother.
Without warning the door slides back and there is an armed trooper in the doorway. He wears full UVP, a helmet, and holds a weapon slanted across his chest.
‘Come on! Rise and shine!’
We both stand smoothly. Mularabone steps out quickly and nearly knocks the trooper over. We haven’t turned on our light so the trooper’s eyes haven’t adjusted to the darkened space and he doesn’t see Mularabone coming. I follow as the trooper staggers back a couple of steps trying to regain his balance.
Outside the sun isn’t up yet and the compound is bathed in light from LLG bulbs set up high on bare metal poles. The trooper comes back at Mularabone, raising his weapon to strike him a blow.
‘Stand down!’ a voice booms and the trooper lowers his weapon, slumps his shoulders and steps back like the schoolyard bully caught in the act.
‘You’ll keep,’ the trooper mutters.
The booming voice belongs to Greer, standing by a vehicle with Jack. Mularabone steps towards them with a big smile.
‘You sure got a discipline problem, Jack,’ he beams.
Jack shifts on his feet and stares at the offending trooper. If looks could kill that man would be face down in the red dirt with a wooden stake protruding from his torso, low, where his liver is.
‘Sleep well, gentlemen?’ asks Greer.
‘Like a baby,’ says Mularabone. ‘Woke up every two hours looking for a nipple, and then pissed and shat myself.’
‘This vehicle will take us to the runway,’ Greer says, indicating a cruiser nearby. ‘We’ll board a plane going south. We’ll eat on the plane.’
‘Thought there were no more flights?’ I say.
‘You been in the boondocks too long, Conman. Lost touch with reality,’ says Jack.
‘Mount up. Let’s get this show on the road,’ says Greer.
‘Have a nice trip,’ says Jack.
There is something about the way he says it, like that snarl he shivved me with about my mother. The fidgety little bastard in his eye is visible even through his dark sunglasses, pacing and swinging some nasty little weapon back and forth.
We look around. Down near the gate where the dam used to be are three heavy cruisers.
Troopers are moving all around them, refuelling and loading on ammo. We know we have to go south but we can’t have him going out to look for Birra-ga’s cave. Greer follows our look.
I eyeball Greer. ‘Isn’t Jack coming with us?’
‘He has his own affairs here.’
Beside me, Mularabone goes all loose, like he’s getting ready to throw a punch, or take one.
‘If Jack’s not coming with us, we’re not going.’
Greer stares at me. I stare him down. I can see my tracks leading forward, being obliterated as I step into them, and my track leads straight through him. There is a valley in his heart and I’m wandering along it with a grenade in each hand. Greer can see I’ve already pulled the pins. His eye is trained to notice such detail. He glances over to Mularabone who gives him the tiniest of nods: Jack should come. Greer turns to Jack and tries to keep his voice conciliatory.
‘Get your shit, Jack. You’re coming.’
‘There’s no way I’m–’
‘You’re coming with me, lackey boy!’ I spit at him, pressing my advantage.
‘Shut up!’ Greer cracks at me, his voice hard and loud, and his stare crazy. He turns back to Jack, who looks even more pissed off. ‘You’ve got thirty seconds,’ he says and climbs into the vehicle.
Jack spins on his heel and goes over to where troopers are checking the weapons on this armoured fighting rig. Greer gives Mularabone and me a look: you’re right. Jack grabs out a pack and comes over to us. Mularabone and I climb into the vehicle. Greer has his usual driver – so the only place for Jack is in the back, the open tray. Mularabone gives me a little slap on the shoulder. We hear Jack in the back on his comms. It is a short, terse conversation with his 2IC.
Over to the east the sun is just coming up. The compound lights go off. We drive out slowly.
Thirty-five: Brothers Going South
We drive out through the stunted gums and sandbags bristling with machineguns that surround the base. Our eyes go out to the remains of the dam structure. The water finished the job that we started, and there are concrete blocks as big as cars washed halfway down the valley. There are a couple of big earthmoving machines moving down to where the river is flowing through the gap. Above the wreckage we can see that the Country that has been freed from the weight of the water is beginning to dry out.
Behind the wire and other defences of the compound, there’s not a single structure that isn’t peppered with bullet holes, or even more substantial damage from exploded grenades. There are still wet marks on the ground from where men have lain and bled.
‘He’s a one-man wrecking ball, your mate,’ says Mularabone.
‘Not my fucken mate.’
‘Report said they were attacked by a fire-team of thirty,’ says Greer.
‘We were well trained,’ says Mularabone, and somehow makes other meanings of words not said about The Sarge reach out to me, and to Greer. This is something we have learned from Warroo-culla and Birra-ga. Greer and I both nod, instantly understanding that this reaching out, and these meanings, are not meant to unfold on a conscious level. But we know that we already feel like a team.
It takes about five minutes to get to the runway where a Water Board corporate jet is waiting for us. The red dust is still asleep and hardly stirs at our passing. In another hour this journey would create a mini dust storm. As the vehicle swings into the open and heads for the waiting plane, Mularabone and I notice the armed men in the tree line. It sure don’t look like they are in total control of the countryside, or they don’t expect to be. The vehicle pulls up next to the jet. Jack jumps out of the back tray.
We climb onto the plane. The chairs are big and leather and set out in an open plan. We’ve only just sat down when the cabin door is shut behind us and the jet engines start to rev. A young Djenga appears in the cockpit doorway in the uniform of a Water Board officer. He is very clean. He crosses to the cabin door and twists the internal lock into position.
‘Good morning, gentlemen. I would ask you to strap yourselves in for take off. Please place all baggage and weapons in the overhead lockers. I’ll serve breakfast as soon as we are in the air.’
Mularabone and I look at each other. We have no bags, packs or weapons. Jack stashes his assault rifle and pack above his seat.
The jet goes to the top of its taxi and turns and the throttle goes down. I swivel and look out of the window, and look at the Country flashing past.
I get this pang deep in my heart, like I’m never gonna see this Country again. My Country. It cuts me. I can hardly breathe; the more I try to force air into my lungs by bellowing out my ribcage like a didj player, the more faint I become, until eventually I start to feel like I am leaving my body.
There I am, down there, sitting in my leather armchair, seatbelt buckled low over my hips, a lump in my throat, tears in my eyes, and a vice gripping the organs at the base of my stomach until the pain is white hot. There I am, staring through the window, leaning into the little porthole, looking down at that beautiful red dust Country as the jet plane lifts up and away. The river shines silver in the morning sun, snaking its way below the smashed dam and filling up the valley.
There I am staring down to see a lone figure standing right out in the open, past the end of the runway. I flick my eyes back to Greer and Jack. They aren’t looking. I look back at the lone figure getting smaller and smaller. I stare at the person on the ground until I am back in my body and looking down, and feeling the connection, and knowing it is Nayia.
She is dancing in the morning sun. I drink her in and hold her in the hollow cheeks of my mouth. I swirl her around, tasting her, feeling out her contours with my tongue and lips. Then the jet banks, turning away south, and she is gone. I spit her gently into my spirit hand, and press her in against my chest, pushing her through the warm curtains of my flesh until she is hard up against my beating heart. She curls up against the heat and the motion of that never-ending organ, and, like a child in a womb, is lulled easily off to sleep.
The front door opens and out comes the Water Board officer with four self-contained meals in silver trays stacked on top of each other. He hands one to each of us, starting with Greer. He doesn’t look directly at Mularabone. He puts a big pot of coffee on a shelf next to the door.
‘Flying time will be two hours.’
Greer gives him a nod and he disappears back into the front section of the plane. Mularabone and I give each other a little look. We help ourselves to more coffee. We eat our pre-packed Water Board breakfast in silence. It’s like being back in the cadres for a moment, it all tastes like shit: warm and moist – and therefore food.
Finally we are full. We sit back. We wait. We watch Greer. He takes out a briefcase and fills in a few papers. We watch his hand move his pen across the paper. He puts the papers away and inputs a few things into his handheld computer. He drinks coffee.
‘I have been taken off all other missions, to give this one the highest priority,’ Greer says.
‘What other missions?’ asks Mularabone.
For a moment, a hardness flashes through Greer’s eyes, and then is gone, replaced by his soft, diplomatic smile.
‘We asked our computers to come up with names,’ says Greer.
‘And they came up with ours,’ I say.
‘Complete with vision of you confessing,’ he adds.
‘To what?’ I ask, looking directly at Jack.
‘Confessing to whatever I asked you to,’ Jack replies with a smile.
‘I’ve been trying to meet you for a long time,’ says Greer.
Jack looks away, out the small window. Greer isn’t telling us anything. We know the drill; this conversation is for Jack’s benefit, to mask our true purpose. This is just protocol. I look out the small window of the plane. Beneath us the red country is laid out like a massive sand painting. My eyes follow the contours of the land carved out by primordial water flows.
‘You were with my brother when he died?’ asks Greer.
; I look up to meet his direct gaze. I nod.
‘Friendly fire?’
I nod.
‘He loved you lads like sons,’ says Greer.
I nod. My tongue seems to have turned to mud. I glance over at Jack. He looks lost. The figure inside his eyeball is slumped at the base of the dead tree. The figure’s head is down. He might be weeping. I look down at my hands. I remember my father washing his hands in grog, wringing them over and over in the bowl of clear liquid until the grime was gone. Jack is looking at his hands too. For a moment the cabin is full of the stench of grog and blood – and then it is gone.
‘Are you two really brothers?’ Greer asks.
Jack snorts.
‘No,’ I say. ‘My entire family were killed in a frozen urine accident. No survivors ... A Water Board jet was flying over, maybe even this one, and they jettisoned some urine into the stratosphere, which froze, and plummeted out of the sky and...’
‘There is a story about two brothers...’ says Greer.
We wait for him to say more. The jet starts to level out. Greer is saying nothing more for now. We listen to the jet engines whine.
Mularabone finds a little compartment under the armrest of his chair. He flicks it open to find a pair of black silk eyeshades. With a huge smile, he digs them out and slips them on. I follow suit and slip behind the veil of personal dark.
‘It’s like having your own camp,’ he says to me in Language.
I laugh, one, because I understood him, and two, because he’s right. Under my dark shades I feel safe. I’m like a child covering my eyes to make the Hairy Man go away. And like the child, when I can’t see the horror, I can easily believe that it is gone.
I put my hand over my chest, and I can feel both our hearts beating, Nayia’s and mine.
Ghost of History: Me and Wobbegong Down by the Darbal Yaragan
Bright Eyes and I jump down from the cutter. We’re on the south side of the Darbal Yaragan just below Manjaree. The marines follow us.