Amongst the Dead

by Robert Gott

  Rufus Farrell took up his position in the sig hut while the others took turns to maintain the watch and gather their equipment ready for departure. Glen, for whom the whole Baxter incident had been surprisingly traumatic (despite his protestations, I was certain he was phobic about the sight of blood), volunteered to watch the horizon until the relief party arrived. Proximity to Baxter made him queasy. This allowed Brian and me the luxury of uninterrupted conversation.

  ‘It’s Farrell,’ I announced. ‘He took the bait, no doubt about it. If Baxter hadn’t started shooting at him, I’d be a dead man.’

  ‘I wasn’t asleep, Will. I’d have stopped him. Were you asleep?’

  ‘It isn’t strictly relevant whether I was asleep or awake. The point is that Farrell was on his way to try to silence me.’

  Brian must have sensed that I was in no mood to brook disagreement because he didn’t offer an alternative explanation for Farrell’s movements. Even so, just in case he was thinking of an alternative, I added firmly, ‘The dunny story doesn’t wash. Where were the smoking leaves he’d need? Nowhere.’

  ‘That’s true. I hadn’t thought of that.’

  ‘So now we have a bit of a problem. Farrell is going to stay here with five unsuspecting Nackeroos. He’s already killed five. What’s five more?’

  ‘We have to warn them.’

  I thought about that for a moment, and knew how ridiculous it would sound to make such an extraordinary accusation against a Nackeroo to members of his own unit — it would be dismissed out of hand. Otherwise, in the unlikely event that they believed us, I couldn’t see them waiting for the law to take its course.

  ‘However we feel about this,’ I said, ‘when you get right down to it, we don’t actually have any evidence that would stand up in a court of law or a court martial. Our certainty counts for nothing. All we can do is try to convince someone with influence, like Archie Warmington, that Rufus Farrell needs to be arrested and investigated.’

  ‘So we just leave him here?’

  ‘I don’t think he’ll try anything. He knows now that I’m on to him.’

  ‘Should we at least tell Glen?’

  ‘Absolutely not — not till we’re back at Roper Bar anyway. I don’t want him going off half-cocked here and confronting Farrell. This has to be managed delicately. With Archie’s help, we should be able to find out about the previous deaths and maybe collect some compelling evidence. Without it, we’re sunk. All Farrell has to do is deny it.’

  The essential truth of this struck me so forcefully that I felt a surge of something like despair. What kind of evidence could we gather?

  ‘This isn’t going to be easy,’ I said. ‘The trail of earlier deaths is well and truly cold, and Farrell’s been clever. Unless someone saw him, I’m not sure how to nail him.’

  ‘You saw him kill Andrew Battell.’

  ‘I saw him after Battell was dead. I didn’t actually see him strangle him, and I couldn’t swear under oath that the figure was Farrell. Of course it was Farrell; we know that, but a barrister could tear my testimony to pieces in minutes.’

  ‘It’s a relief it’s not Fulton, at any rate. I reckon we should bring him in on this. He might know something, and not know how important it is.’

  Brian was right. The person most likely to provide good information about whatever ties there were between Ashe, Battell, and Farrell — and probably the other three — was Fulton. Now eliminated as a suspect, he’d been elevated to the status of a witness. He may well have noticed, or overheard, something that seemed obscure and meaningless until he reconsidered it in the light of these deaths. Any good private-inquiry agent will tell you that the solution to a crime is frequently to be found in an insignificant, easy-to-overlook detail.

  ‘We’ll get Archie and Fulton together as soon as we get back, but under no circumstances are we to let slip that we’re working for Army Intelligence, even though it would probably help our credibility.’

  ‘You needn’t say it like that — like you think I’m going to give us away.’

  I sighed ostentatiously.

  ‘That’s not what I meant, Brian. I wasn’t having a go at you. I was thinking out loud more than anything. Christ, you’re touchy sometimes.’

  ‘Yeah, well, you have a way of bringing out the best in people.’

  Any further discussion along these lines was mercifully terminated by the arrival of the men from Roper Bar. They entered the camp in the now familiar anonymity of their protective gear. Two of them had been there before. The other three weren’t reticent about expressing their first impressions, and swore with a kind of fatigued gusto.

  When everything was in order for our departure, Baxter was placed on the stretcher, and his four fellow Nackeroos took the first turn at carrying him out of the camp. The descent to the mudflats was hard going, and it took some ingenuity and enormous strength to prevent Baxter from being tipped onto the ground. He was silent and still, having retreated into an open-eyed stupor that might have been shock or madness. The temporary cessation of rain made the going a little easier, but it meant I was deputised to keep the flies away from his foot. The cheesecloth bandage was wet with blood, and ripe for fly-strike.

  There was very little talking as we negotiated the decline, all our concentration being required to keep our footing and to keep Baxter as level as possible. When we finally reached the stinking mudflats it was almost a relief, and we stopped to rest a moment before beginning the horrible crossing. Brian and I took one end of a pole each, while two of the Nackeroos said they’d keep their places. Each sucking step, with the weight of the stretcher dragging us down, was agony for my arm and for my neck. I thought I could manage, but a searing spike of pain across my shoulders was followed by the sickening dizziness that I knew from experience to be the prelude to passing out. It happened so quickly that I didn’t have time to warn the other bearers. I simply dropped my end of the pole and collapsed into the mud. I can’t have been unconscious for more than a few seconds; when I came to, I saw that Baxter had been pitched into the mud, face first, and that the Nackeroos were scrabbling to free him and put him back on the stretcher.

  ‘He’s not dead, is he?’ I heard John Smith say, and I assumed he was talking about me.

  Brian was leaning over me, and in my half-waking state I felt him fumble through my shirt to check for a heartbeat. When I gurgled incoherently, he lifted my mosquito veil — an action I considered careless and thoughtless. My face was immediately attacked. I suppose this had the remedial effect of bringing me around quickly, and I struggled to my feet.

  ‘You gave us a fright, mate,’ one of the Nackeroos said. ‘There was a young bloke, real young he was, who had a heart attack crossing these flats. I thought you might have been another one.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said rather sheepishly.

  Glen, ungraciously, I must say, took my place and we continued. Even without the burden of the stretcher, I found myself several times on the brink of collapse, and it took every last shred of willpower to keep going.

  The Hurricane was waiting for us at the small jetty, and I couldn’t have been happier if she were the Queen Mary.

  Doubtless the trip back was perilous, being undertaken in darkness. The weather held, which was a mercy, and the captain seemed to know these waters well, so we lay on the deck unconcerned, grateful to be rid of the cumbersome hats and gloves. The going, however, was very slow, and because we hadn’t left the jetty until quite late, it was dawn before we approached the landing place at Roper Bar.

  ‘There seems to be a welcoming committee,’ Brian said.

  Archie Warmington was standing on the bank, flanked by two Nackeroos neatly dressed in their best World War One cast-offs. Each of them held a rifle.

  We filed off The Hurricane, and Baxter was taken to get medical attention, although he wouldn’t
get proper treatment until he was evacuated to Katherine. Glen, Brian, and I approached Archie.

  ‘What’s all this?’ Glen asked. ‘It looks like you’re expecting the bloody governor-general.’

  Archie didn’t smile. He turned to me and said, with measured gravity, ‘Private William Power, I regret to inform you that you are being placed under arrest for the suspected murders of Corporal Andrew Battell and Private Nicholas Ashe.’

  The two uniformed Nackeroos took an arm each. Too stunned to move or speak, I was only vaguely aware that my hands were being forced behind my back and handcuffed.

  ‘I’m sorry, Will,’ Archie said. ‘I have to follow orders. I’m sure there’s been some mistake, but we’ve received information that leaves us no option but to place you temporarily under guard until the matter is cleared up.’

  Brian’s mouth dropped open, and Glen stared at me in a way that suggested he always knew there was something murderous about me. My mind cleared suddenly, and I said, ‘Rufus Farrell. That’s where your information came from, isn’t it?’

  ‘I’m not at liberty to say,’ Archie replied.

  I was led to an area of freshly cleared ground, fenced around with coils of barbed wire, which had thoughtfully been set up in the mottled shade of a few trees. My hands were released, and I was told to enter through a small opening. One of my guards came in with me and, to my dismay, attached a small length of chain to my ankle. He twisted the barbed wire shut as he left. He didn’t say a word. This was to be my prison, at least for the moment.

  I had to hand it to Rufus Farrell. He was smarter, or more cunning, than I’d given him credit for. In the distance, I saw Brian and Archie wander off together into the scrub.

  Chapter Nine

  from bad to worse

  THE WEATHER DIDN’T CONTINUE FINE. It’s not called the Wet for nothing, and this wet season, although still in its meteorological infancy, was muscling its way into the record books. There was no shelter in my little compound. There was some consolation, however, in seeing that the guard had no shelter either. I hobbled over to him.

  ‘We’re both prisoners,’ I said.

  He looked at me and raised his eyebrows.

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘we’re different.’

  ‘We’re not, you know.’

  He laid his rifle on the ground and performed two energetic star jumps.

  ‘I can do that,’ he said. ‘That’s one difference.’

  He picked up his rifle and turned his back, no doubt secretly pleased at this taunt.

  I could see that there was very little movement in the camp, the rain confining most people to whatever covered spaces they could find. I wasn’t cold, but wet, clinging clothes are never comfortable, and this exacerbated the outrage that was growing within me at being snookered in this way by Rufus Farrell. It would be the briefest of misunderstandings, but it would buy Farrell time, and who knew what that might mean? I felt most keenly the humiliation of standing in chains, in the pouring rain, on public display. Farrell must have radioed Roper Bar with the absurd information that he’d uncovered the truth about Battell’s and Ashe’s deaths; and whatever he’d said, it must have been sufficiently convincing to warrant my arrest — and he’d managed it in Morse. I had to give him full marks for his signalling ability.

  I don’t suppose I was chained and confined for more than an hour. Archie reappeared with two men in tow, this time dressed only in shorts.

  ‘I see the formal part of these proceedings is over,’ I said.

  Archie indicated, after the rolling back of the barbed wire, that the chains around my ankles were to be removed.

  ‘I’m sorry, Will. We had to go by the book.’

  ‘And it took you a full hour to discover that Rufus Farrell was covering his own arse by lying to you.’

  ‘If I were you, Will, I wouldn’t say another word.’

  I quelled the anger that might have led me to say something I might have regretted, and began to walk away from Archie and his companions. One of them placed his hand solidly on my chest.

  ‘I think you’ve misunderstood something,’ Archie said. ‘You’re still under arrest. We’re taking you to be questioned. Tomorrow you’re being transferred to Katherine for more detailed questioning.’

  ‘This is too absurd!’

  ‘Not another word, Will.’

  I had no trepidation that this matter might go badly for me — how could it? — so I entered the former police station more curious than alarmed. As one section of it had been turned into a cookhouse, the unsavoury odours of military cuisine penetrated its corridors and the small office to which I was taken. A man, younger than I, and rather short, stood up from behind a desk. I knew he was taking his role as inquisitor seriously because he was wearing a shirt. It was filthy and sweat-stained, but it was undeniably a shirt. He saluted Archie, who returned the favour. Archie closed the door to the office, and the three of us stood in awkward silence.

  ‘I’m Captain Dench. Major Warmington you know already, I believe.’

  He motioned me to sit down.

  ‘This is all irregular and difficult, and frankly I haven’t got a clue how to deal with it, so I’m batting you to Katherine. They can sort it out.’

  ‘May I say something?’ I asked.

  ‘I wouldn’t,’ said Archie. ‘I’d keep my powder dry. I wouldn’t be digging the hole you’re in any deeper.’

  I was tempted to draw attention to the inelegant mixed metaphors, but the look on Archie’s face was so severe that it stopped me.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘No. This has gone far enough. Two men have been murdered, and the man who murdered them is at Gulnare Bluff, probably dispatching a few more Nackeroos even as we speak. Now, I’m sorry if you find this irregular and difficult, because it’s really very simple. Andrew Battell was strangled. I saw the man who did it. Nicholas Ashe did not shoot himself. He was left-handed. Rufus Farrell was on the point of killing me last night. Are you following me so far?’

  Neither Archie nor Dench spoke.

  ‘Brian can confirm all of this.’

  ‘Who’s Brian?’

  ‘It really inspires confidence to know that you’ve come here so well prepared, Captain. Brian is my brother.’

  Dench looked at Archie, who nodded. Archie’s inexplicable silence aroused great agitation in me.

  ‘Why don’t you say something, Archie? You know this is ridiculous. You know it. What’s going on here? What’s this about?’

  ‘It’s about murder, Will. Or so you and Rufus Farrell say.’

  ‘And Brian?’

  ‘And Brian, of course, but I’d expect him to support his older brother. He’s loyal — an admirable quality.’

  ‘He has many attractive qualities, but of course you know that already.’

  ‘He did warn me that you might turn ugly.’

  Captain Dench had lost the thread, so he interrupted.

  ‘We’re not taking Private Farrell’s word as gospel. The reason you’re not leaving for Katherine until tomorrow is that he’s being fetched from Gulnare Bluff now. No one’s happy about it, I can tell you — The Hurricane has more important things to do than waste a day going back there. He’ll be going with you to Katherine.’

  ‘All right,’ I said. ‘That’s a relief.’

  ‘The situation is this, Will,’ Archie said. ‘Rufus Farrell says that you more or less told him outright that you’d killed the two men.’

  I scoffed.

  ‘He understood that he was next. He also pointed out that no one had died until you arrived. Not evidence, I grant you, but quite a coincidence.’

  I almost let slip my knowledge of the earlier three deaths, and that would have revealed me as being other than an actor. But this knowledge would be my trump card, to be produced
only if Farrell’s testimony somehow placed me in danger.

  ‘On the other hand, you say Rufus Farrell is the culprit — and Brian concurs — and although your evidence, as I understand it, seems highly circumstantial, it can’t be ignored. Until a proper investigation is undertaken, it’s pretty much your word against Farrell’s. This matter will be dealt with by the military and not the police. The NAOU is a unit that must not be exposed to publicity at this vulnerable point in the war.’

  ‘I have no objection to that. My own experience with the police, and their powers of deduction when it comes to murder, has been less than awe-inspiring.’

  As soon as I’d said this, I wished I hadn’t. Captain Dench pounced on it.

  ‘You’ve been involved in murder investigations in the past?’

  ‘Some,’ I replied, and added this to the list of things I’d rather not have said. Dench’s incredulity was epic.

  ‘Some?’

  ‘It’s irrelevant. I’m not saying another thing.’

  ‘I wish you’d taken my advice about that at the start,’ Archie said.

  ‘I do have just one question,’ I said. ‘Is Rufus Farrell under arrest?’

  ‘Yes,’ Archie said. ‘You and he will be treated in precisely the same way. Arrest isn’t quite the right word, though. You’re both under guard, pending an outcome.’

  ‘You used the word “arrest” down on the wharf.’

  ‘Yes, it was lazy of me. I don’t have the power to arrest anybody but, as there are no provosts here, we have to take the military law into our own hands from time to time.’

  Captain Dench, who was observing me in a subtly different fashion since my slip about previous murder investigations, informed me that I was to be confined to that room until the jeep’s departure the following morning.