Amongst the Dead

by Robert Gott

  ‘I’d laugh, Will, but I’ve been told it might lead to a punctured lung. Was it really only a few minutes ago that we were discussing your predilection for backing the wrong horse?’

  ‘You sound like a trapped and desperate man, Archie.’

  ‘Archie, please,’ Glen said. ‘Tell this fool of a man what’s going on before I clock him.’

  ‘All right. Now, Will, before I say anything else, I want to assure you that the only thing standing between me and fury about what your actions have done to me is morphine. I feel quite chirpy, but when it wears off and I appreciate fully how much damage you’ve inflicted, both to me and to this operation, I advise you to be several hundred miles from me.’

  ‘It’s probable that you’ll be locked up here, Archie, so you don’t need to worry about that.’

  He closed his eyes in an ostentatious display of mastering his exasperation.

  ‘I am not a Japanese spy, and Glen is not a Japanese spy. As I told you earlier, I work in Intelligence, and it should come as no surprise to you — although no doubt it will — that Glen also is in their employ.’

  I opened my mouth to speak, and he held up his hand to silence me.

  ‘Let me just say, Will, that despite every wrong supposition you’ve made, we do appreciate the fact that you have preserved your own Intelligence role, despite what must have been severe temptations to rescue yourself by announcing it. In all of my discussions with James Fowler I’ve been most complimentary about that aspect of your character. In an absolute sense, you can be trusted. You just can’t be trusted to get anything right.’

  I remained silent.

  ‘On the fifth of October, you and Brian had a meeting at Victoria Barracks in Melbourne with James Fowler and his sister, Nigella. At that meeting you were told that someone up here was killing members of a secret unit, the NAOU. You were told that Intelligence needed you to go undercover and find out what was going on. It all had to be hush-hush because the NAOU was hush-hush — and it still is, I hasten to add. The civilian population doesn’t know it exists, and neither do most other sections of the military. At any rate, they don’t know exactly what it is or what it does. At some point, you were introduced to Corporal Glen Pyers here, and you were led to believe that he was a humble magician whose job was to entertain, and that was all. We were, I have to say, surprised that it didn’t occur to you, or to Brian, that Glen might be in Intelligence, even though you were introduced to him in James Fowler’s office. Again, the fact that you never made an attempt to quiz him on this, or to confide in him, remains, despite everything, an impressive demonstration of loyalty to Intelligence and to your idea of what was expected of you.’

  ‘I need to sit down,’ I said. ‘My leg is hurting.’

  My leg wasn’t the problem. The fluid assurance of Archie’s words, and his intimate knowledge of our mission, were slowly but surely altering my perspective, and I began to experience the sickening vertigo of having my world turned upside down. A chair was pushed into the back of my knees, and I folded into it.

  ‘I’m afraid,’ Archie continued, ‘we lied to you and Brian on several fronts. But that’s what Intelligence does — we’re in the business of finding the truth, not telling it. You weren’t sent to the West Alligator River to discover a murderer. You were sent as a smokescreen for an assassin.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Decisions are made in a time of war which would be unthinkable in peacetime. Two men in A Company had been identified by your brother Fulton as Axis sympathisers — more in the line of fascists than Japanese imperialists; for them, Japan was an ally, not the enemy. We knew that they’d already passed some information to the Japs, because a few weeks back Tokyo Rose had sent a personal cheerio to an NAOU section and named their location. Now maybe a flyover had spotted them, but the blokes in that section swear they’d seen no aircraft. The information had to have come from within the NAOU. Fortunately, the unit is still finding its feet, and it’s still deploying its members for maximum effect. The leak had to be plugged before seriously damaging stuff could be passed on.’

  He paused.

  ‘We made a tough decision to plug the leak, permanently. Corporal Pyers was assigned the task of assassinating both sympathisers.’

  ‘No,’ I said, not because I didn’t believe it, but because these extraordinary words physically winded me, and the sound was simply pushed from my lungs.

  ‘It was Glen you saw leaving Andrew Battell’s bed, and it was Glen who shot Nicholas Ashe. Placing the gun in the wrong hand was a mistake — a bad one, and in a way it led to Rufus Farrell’s death. He’d noticed it, of course, and things began to go pear-shaped when you accused each other of murder.’

  ‘Farrell had nothing to do with any of this?’

  ‘Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I’m sorry to say, Will, that you scared the living daylights out of him. I don’t know what you said to him, but he genuinely believed that you’d killed Battell and Ashe, and that he was next.’

  I thought I might vomit.

  ‘And who killed the three Nackeroos who died before we arrived.’

  ‘That’s one of the lies we told you. There were no deaths. It was Nigella Fowler’s idea. It was important to the success of this mission that you and Brian agree to come to the West Alligator River.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’ll explain that in a minute. Nigella felt that you mightn’t be able to be talked into doing this, but that you could certainly be flattered into it. I’m sorry if that sounds rather calculating. She felt that the twin drawcard of performing and being trusted to solve a nasty crime would be irresistible to you. Brian’s personal circumstances made his decision an easy one. Nigella was right, as she usually is, and away we went. Having you believe that you were investigating crimes that had already been committed meant that you were always looking in the wrong direction — a talent that you have in spades, if you’ll pardon me for saying so.’

  My mind was now so crowded with revelations that I felt no compunction to defend myself.

  ‘Why us? You could have chosen anyone.’

  ‘There were all sorts of advantages from our point of view. James Fowler wanted you out of Melbourne, just in case there was any trouble after the Archbishop Mannix affair. That helped in persuading his superiors that you were a better choice that anyone else. There was, however, a more compelling reason for sending you. A favour was being called in. You’re aware, of course, that your mother is about to marry a man named Peter Gilbert. I don’t know how close you are to him, but I don’t think he’ll mind my telling you that he’s one of our most respected men, or he was before he retired. Perhaps you knew that already?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘He’s not completely out of the loop — our people never are — and he knew that Fulton was the one who’d done the work of identifying Battell and Ashe. He knew, too, that your mother was frantic about Fulton’s safety. We don’t know why she was so excessively worried, but we suspect that he let her know in one of his letters, in code that escaped the censor, that he’d discovered traitors in his section. What better way to reassure her that he was all right than to send his older brothers to be with him? Sentimental, but it suited everybody. I think Peter saw it as a gift to the woman he loved.’

  ‘Fulton is his son,’ I said flatly.

  ‘Yes, we know that, which is why he exerted pressure to get you up here.’

  ‘He wouldn’t have believed that Brian and I could protect Fulton.’

  ‘No. That was our job. You weren’t meant to be anything more significant than a living comfort-package. We saw an opportunity for extra value.’

  Archie was tiring, and this last, brutally honest assessment of our usefulness might have been symptomatic of a lapse in concentration. Here he was, declaring that Brian and I were no more than pawns in this
monstrous war, to be moved here or there, in consequence of a favour being called in. My loathing for Peter Gilbert was at that moment fierce, and Army Intelligence and all it represented began to seem poisonous to me. I suddenly felt the alarming force of the discovery that, to these people, to James Fowler, to Nigella, Archie, Glen, and Peter Gilbert, I was of use but not of value.

  Archie had by now run out of energy, or interest, or both, and Glen indicated that we should leave him to the soothing buzz of morphine.

  Outside, under a leaden sky, Glen told me that a train to Katherine would be arriving in half an hour, and that all three of us would be on it.

  ‘The hospital in Darwin is too risky, and Archie refuses to be evacuated to Townsville. He wants to be relatively close to Roper Bar so that he can supervise the next part of this operation.’

  ‘No. That’s it. I’m not coming with you. I’ve had enough of it. I’ve been lied to, mistreated, used, slandered, humiliated, and battered. I don’t want anything more to do with Army Intelligence. You disgust me, all of you.’

  Glen closed his dextrous fingers around my wrist.

  ‘You can’t just pull out because you feel personally hard-done by. You’re not in a bloody play.’

  ‘I agreed to come to this hell hole because I thought I’d be doing something useful. It turns out that I’m here because of a cosy little arrangement between Peter Gilbert and Intelligence. Well, that just isn’t good enough.’

  ‘I’ve never met your step-father, but his reputation is impressive.’

  ‘He is not my step-father.’

  ‘He will be when he marries your mother.’

  Was that a smirk on his face?

  ‘I’m not going to discuss my family with you.’

  ‘I’m not interested in your family. Believe it or not, the war with Japan isn’t actually about your family. Which is why you can’t pull out now. You don’t have a choice. Well, you do have a choice, but spending the rest of the war in Brocks Creek isn’t much of one.’

  ‘Are you threatening me?’

  ‘Yes, I’m threatening you, but what I really want to do is throttle you.’

  The fact that Glen Pyers was experienced in the dispatching of enemies made me think that there might be more than conversational hyperbole to this remark. He did have a point, and I’m not deaf to the reasoned arguments of others, and not so stubborn as to maintain a position in the face of evidence that contradicts it. Glen was quite right to point out that the war was larger than its effect on me, and the mention of Brocks Creek underpinned his argument strongly. I put my hands up in a gesture of surrender.

  ‘I give up, Glen. Whatever it is you want me to do, I’ll do — we’re on the same side, after all. But perhaps you can understand that I’m not feeling very proud of myself at the moment. I’ve put Archie in hospital, and I’m at least partly responsible for Rufus Farrell’s death.’

  ‘No self-pity, Will. It’s a luxury none of us can afford.’

  ‘It’s not self-pity. It’s self-awareness.’

  ‘If it’s any consolation, you did everything we thought you’d do. You and Brian weren’t picked out of a hat. When James Fowler recruited you in Melbourne, he did a lot of background work on you and on Brian. Having Peter Gilbert on the inside was a stroke of luck. Intelligence work must be in the blood.’

  ‘Gilbert is Fulton’s father, not mine.’

  ‘But Gilbert worked with your father, in Intelligence, in the First War.’

  This was one piece of information too many, and I told Glen that I didn’t want to hear any more. When I got back to Melbourne I’d confront both Peter Gilbert and Mother with what I knew, and demand a full explanation. Standing here, inside the gates at Brocks Creek, all I could contend with was what lay immediately ahead for me. The past could wait, even if it had, in some inexplicable way, pushed me into this present.

  ‘I presume when you say that I did everything that was expected of me, you’re being offensive, and you mean that I did everything wrongly.’

  ‘Well, that’s a bit harsh. Let’s just say that James Fowler’s predictions, based on Peter Gilbert’s predictions, were played out more or less as described.’

  Rather than draw attention to his poor diplomacy skills, I pressed him to explain why this operation was not yet complete, given that the two traitors had been disposed of.

  ‘We’ve lost Fulton.’

  ‘Lost?’

  ‘He’s gone AWL, and we can only speculate on what his desertion means. The one thing we hope isn’t true is that he’s working for the Japs.’

  I was taken aback by this, and was beginning to appreciate that the casual annihilation of other people’s reputations was something of an Intelligence specialty.

  ‘But he uncovered Battell and Ashe. Archie said so.’

  ‘Spying is a messy, complicated business. Battell and Ashe might have been sacrificed to shield Fulton; they mightn’t have even known about him. Don’t underestimate the Japs, Will. Disguising Fulton as a hero would be well within their capabilities.’

  ‘The more I know about Intelligence, the more repellent it becomes.’

  ‘Intelligence will win this war.’

  He said this with some passion but, when he realised he’d been caught in the act of expressing a real emotion, he coughed to disguise his embarrassment, and sought to reassure me about Fulton.

  ‘You can relax about Fulton. We don’t think for a minute that he’s a Japanese agent. I’m just letting you know that no one gets special treatment, and that we consider all options. What is far more likely to have happened is that Fulton’s had some sort of breakdown. He’s very young, and he knows that if it hadn’t been for him, Battell and Ashe would still be alive. Maybe he liked them. Maybe he didn’t want to believe what he knew to be true. On top of everything else, his brothers arrive, and one of them, you, winds up being carted off in chains for murders he knows you didn’t commit.’

  ‘So he knew you were here to kill his mates?’

  ‘Well, he knew they’d died because they were traitors. Whether he knew it was me or not isn’t important. The thing is this: it all seems to have been too much for him, and he’s taken off. We want him back, and you’re our best chance of getting him back.’

  ‘You want to court-martial him for desertion?’

  ‘No. Intelligence wants to train him up. The NAOU might want to court-martial him, but they’re not going to get their hands on him. We’re going to find him — you’re going to find him, and convince him to come back with us to Melbourne. He’s a very valuable young man.’

  ‘If Intelligence knows so much, you should know that he’s unlikely to listen to me. Why haven’t you organised for Brian to do this?’

  ‘He was our first choice, obviously. Unfortunately, he’s temporarily out of action. He was bitten by a scorpion, and he’s had a serious allergic reaction to the venom. His whole leg looks like it’d burst if you pricked it with a pin. He can’t walk. He’s still at Roper Bar, so you can talk all this over with him when we get there.’

  The startling and troubling fact that Brian had been incapacitated might have been considered by anyone other than someone in Intelligence as of sufficient moment to take precedence over all other matters. For Glen it was no more than a useful snippet to be produced at the point in a conversation where it would have maximum effect.

  The train pulled in to the Brocks Creek siding, and I watched as Archie was carried towards it on a stretcher. His hand was covering his eyes.

  ‘So,’ Glen said, ‘are you in?’

  ‘You make it sound like there’s a viable choice. Yes, I’m in. I can’t bear the idea of Fulton being sent here. What kind of reward is that for doing his duty? And I certainly want to talk to Brian.’

  ‘Good man. Archie said you’d do the right thing, the honoura
ble thing.’

  I didn’t believe Glen Pyers had the faintest idea what honour meant, and I didn’t believe that delivering Fulton to Army Intelligence, where he would, by degrees, be turned into Glen, or Archie, or even Nigella, had very much to do with honour. I got onto the train with a heavy, muddled heart, which lightened slightly as we pulled away from Brocks Creek.

  Chapter Twelve

  resolution

  I DIDN’T SPEAK WITH ARCHIE ON THE TRAIN, and at Katherine he was whisked away to have his leg set in plaster before I could confer with him. The big news on the platform was that Colonnus had won the Cup, on a wet track, by seven lengths. I couldn’t have cared less.

  Glen and I were found bunks for the night, and he settled back into taking money from the gullible. I was glad of the distraction it offered, and no one bothered me. Fulton was out there somewhere, hiding in the grim reaches of the Roper River, distressed and maybe desperate, believing that as a deserter he would be punished and shamed.

  We left for Roper Bar before daybreak, on a motorcycle, with Glen driving and me clinging to him like a limpet. My bruised leg suffered, but the motorcycle negotiated the bogs more successfully than a car or a truck could have done. Twice we found the road impassable, and had to carry the bike a small distance. We sped past two trucks that were firmly bogged, and caught the tail end of abuse for failing to stop. Even with this clear run, we didn’t complete the four hundred and thirty miles to Roper Bar until just before midnight.

  Brian had been moved under cover, and when I found him he was awake and feverish. Glen had made the consequence of the scorpion bite seem almost humorous, but Brian’s bloated leg and his wild eyes alarmed me. He recognised me, but he was incapable of a sustained conversation. His water bottle was beside him, and I held his head while he drank from it.

  ‘I’m going to bring Fulton back,’ I whispered. ‘He’s not going to be charged with being AWL.’