The Cadet Corporal

by Christopher Cummings

  Dozens of incidents where he should have shown greater courage or will power flitted across his mind to mock him and to scorch his self esteem. All he could do was pretend he was happy and relaxed, while wondering unhappily how he might do better. What really bothered him was the idea that he actually might be a coward, and that he was too scared to really put things to the test when his courage was challenged.

  Kirsty was no help. She sat next to him and chattered away as though she didn’t have a care in the world. She gave him frequent ‘loving’ looks and that caused Graham to worry because Lt Maclaren and Lt McEwen were both sitting nearby. The best he could do was pretend he was tired and then lie down with his hat over his eyes. But even that made him feel weak. ‘I’m just hiding, not solving the problem,’ he told himself.

  Inside he knew that he was scared of being firm with Kirsty in case she rejected him. Or worse, that out of spite, she might tell on him. ‘Reject their advances at your peril!’ he brooded unhappily. The problem was compounded by the fact that he really did like her, as well as being driven by strong desires.

  Hearing the distant shouts and yells of unseen actions in the undergrowth did nothing to ease the tension. After 3 Section filed off to start the exercise Graham’s stomach tightened into a hard knot. As the time to move drew closer he became increasingly restless. A nervous pee did not seem to help at all, merely added to his feelings of inadequacy. He had heard many mocking comments about people wetting themselves when afraid and he wondered if he might be one of them. However there did not seem to be any alternative but to go on. ‘I can’t just say I’m sick or something,’ he thought.

  The best he could manage was to tell jokes with Stephen, then to drink and refill his waterbottles. At 1225 he stood up and began putting on his webbing. By then he did feel sick in the stomach. “Up you get Four Section,” he croaked.

  “Who goes where in the patrol?” Andrews asked as he reluctantly got up.

  Graham had been thinking hard about that. “Pat, you and Halyday go scouts.”

  “Aw! I wanted to be a scout,” Andrews whined.

  “Shut up and do as you are told!” Graham snapped. He was so stressed he had no time for argument. He turned and said, “Roger, you and Kirsty are the gun group, Group One, Di and Lucy and Ando are the rifle group, Group Two.”

  To his relief the others accepted this and he was able to line them up without further trouble. Then they stood and waited. It was very hot and sweat trickled down into their eyes and soaked their shirts. Graham wiped his face, looked at his watch for the tenth time then noted it was time to go. He glanced at Lt Maclaren who nodded.

  As he gave the signal to move Graham felt his stomach churn with queasiness. For a moment he felt dizzy and he wondered if he really was going to be sick. But he made himself walk and went trudging across the dry sand behind Halyday.

  After wading the ankle deep flow of water the section threaded through a stand of young trees. They came out on a smaller dry river channel. This had the small trees on the left and the high bank covered with large, overhanging trees and rubber vines on the right. The boot prints went left so Graham directed the scouts that way. Now that they were pretending to patrol they spread out so that there were ten paces between people- or at least there was at the front. Graham found he had to keep turning round to signal or hiss at the three girls and Andrews to spread out. “Stop bunching up!” he whispered loudly at them.

  “Bang!” shouted a voice from the trees on the left.

  It was an ambush left. After the initial moments of flustered panic Graham got Roger, Andrews and the three girls in line on his left and counter-attacked. By the time he had swept through the ambushers he was sweating profusely and his heart was pounding furiously but he thought he had coped alright. He had managed to keep control of the people with him while Pat and Halyday had done the right thing.

  The ambush party comprised CUO McAlistair, Sgt Sherry and Cadet Lyle from the medics. CUO McAlistair pointed to where a small, dry gully led in to the river bed.

  “That was well done Cpl Kirk. Now take your section up that gully there. It is Dingo Creek.”

  Graham gulped down a big drink and wiped sweat from his face as he eyed Dingo Creek. Overhanging trees hid the entrance, which had a large, muddy pool almost closing it off. Beyond that the creek bed was sand and dry mud in a deep gully five metres wide. Both banks appeared to be an impenetrable tangle of rubber vines and thorn bushes. The sides were five to ten metres high and almost vertical in places. A few large trees topped the bank, amidst clumps of vine and long grass. Thistles and some sort of waist-high purple weed grew thickly in places along the creek bed.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ Graham thought gloomily. ‘This looks a bit grim.’

  Nervously they entered Dingo Creek one at a time, their eyes anxiously scanning the thick undergrowth for signs of lurking enemy. Fifty paces on they had to skirt a sludge filled pool under a small tree. The creek then curved left. No breeze penetrated into the deep cleft and the midday sun blazed down directly into it so that a heat wave shimmered off the sand. Graham noted a snake track, pig tracks and wallaby droppings but found his eyes seemed to go fuzzy when he tried to search for hidden enemy.

  Then Pat signalled and Graham put them all under cover while he went forward to look. It was a rope tied across the creek bed with a sign hanging on it reading ‘MINES’. Twenty paces on was a second rope, presumably to show the far side of the ‘minefield’. A few tins were just visible in the sand. They coped by Graham deploying two groups to cover while the scouts prodded a path across. Then he followed, half-expecting the enemy to open fire as he did. Then he had each of the other groups join him one at a time.

  Around the next bend in the creek was a log which they had to crawl under. Beyond that the creek ran straight for nearly a hundred paces. Both banks were high and covered in thick weeds or vine scrub. Near the far end of the straight was another large log across the creek and beyond that the creek curved to the right. Worse still, Capt Conkey and CSM Cleland were standing watching near the second log.

  “Oh bugger!” Graham muttered. Seeing the OC and CSM made him sure there was going to be a difficult problem to cope with. He hesitated, trying to pick what the problem might be, or where the enemy might be waiting. ‘I’d like time to scout along the top of both banks,’ he thought. He also decided that if he was really on patrol he wouldn’t even be in the bed of the gully. ‘It’s just a bloody death trap. I’d cut my way through that vine scrub instead.’

  But he wasn’t given that option. Capt Conkey called on him to get a move on. Reluctantly, knowing he was walking into disaster, Graham signalled for the scouts to move. Pat and Halyday at least did it well, moving alternately from cover to cover, one on each side of the five metre wide creek bed.

  It happened about when Graham was sure it would, and even from where he thought it would; from the top of the bank above the bend directly ahead of him. Voices began yelling “Bang! Bang!”

  “Contact Front!” Graham screamed. He dashed three paces left to the nearest cover, rolling in under the long grass, hoping there were no snakes there. As he did he tried to decide which bank was the higher so he could order his fire support group to go there. He decided that the left bank was the same height and easier to get up and began screaming to Roger, then saw that Roger and Kirsty were already trying to claw their way up the other bank.

  Knowing that Capt Conkey and the CSM were watching added to Graham’s feelings of losing control, of failure and of fear. He became flustered and shouted to Roger to come back, then changed his mind as they were already half way up. That bank was so steep that in places it had been eroded and undermined to expose bare grey earth. His throat hot and dry with shouting, Graham tried to come up with a plan and, at the same time, control his section. He yelled for Lucy and Di to move forward to join him.

  “Climb the bank on the left Group Two!” he shouted. As he did he signalled frantically with his arm. That was all h
e could manage before the dust and dry grass caused him to have a fit of coughing. He gasped and spat and tried again. There were muffled cries in reply, over-ridden by screaming from in front. Graham began clawing his way up through the long grass and vines, getting snagged and tangled at every step. Completely snared and now desperate he stopped, chest heaving, to try to work out what to do. He then saw what the shouting in front was. Halyday had raced on along the creek bed, dashing from cover to cover, on a one man suicide attack. Pat was trying to give him ‘covering fire’ while yelling at him to stop.

  Halyday didn’t. He dashed on past the OC and CSM, rolled under the log and launched himself up the steep slope directly into the front of the enemy. “Oh bloody hell!” Graham cried in despair. ‘We’ve made a real stuff-up of this!’ he thought miserably.

  As Halyday scrabbled up the slope Graham groaned with anguish. But then he heard voices up on the bank above him. It was Lucy, Di and Andrews. “We found an animal track,” Lucy called.

  Graham looked around and saw that Roger and Kirsty had managed to get to the top of the other bank and were crawling forward through long grass to a big tree. ‘That would make a good fire support position,’ he thought. ‘Maybe...’

  By then Halyday had climbed the bank and Graham heard Sgt Yeldham screaming, “You are ------ dead, you ------ idiot! Lie down and shut up!”

  “Stop using that sort of language Sgt Yeldham!” Capt Conkey bellowed.

  Graham took heart. ‘If I can get up to the top we might do it yet.’

  But when he tried he just tripped and became entangled in the vines again. Almost frantic to try to do well while Capt Conkey was watching Graham struggled till he thought his heart would burst. It was no good. He was only half way up the bank but was ensnared.

  “Lucy! Di! Keep going along the top of the bank to attack. I will try to get up to join you,” he shouted. Knowing that Capt Conkey would hear that Graham burned with humiliation. ‘What will he think of me!’ he thought unhappily. ‘The section commander who leads from the rear!’

  But it was better than doing nothing so he repeated the order. When he was sure the others were moving he stopped and took stock of his own predicament. Slowly, one limb at a time, he disentangled himself. Then he was able to slide down beneath the vines and crawl. Dirt and leaves fell on him and went down the back of his collar to aggravate and irritate but he was so upset he ignored them. Wriggling as fast as he could and still hoping there no snakes, he struggled up the slope.

  By the time he arrived on a narrow animal pad on top he could hear that the battle was joined. A glance across the gully showed Kirsty and Roger ‘firing’ from behind two big trees. Heedless of scratches Graham dashed along the animal pad, wrenching himself free from any snagging vines by brute force. His heart hammered and his breath came in hot gasps but he was driven to catch up and lead.

  In this he was not successful but only by a few paces. He glimpsed Capt Conkey down in the bed of the gully just as he caught up with Andrews. By then the two girls were standing facing CUO Mitrovitch and Sgt Yeldham. Halyday sat under a bush looking grumpy.

  “That will do Cpl Kirk,” Capt Conkey called. “Bring your section down and keep going with the exercise.”

  Graham stood and gasped air, then gestured to go down the slope along another animal pad. By the time he had slithered down in a cloud of dust he was sweating so much he was coated in grime and had trouble seeing. While he waited for Roger and Kirsty to descend he had a big drink and washed some of the dirt and sweat off his face.

  “Well done gang,” he croaked. He made them all drink, then swapped Andrews and Kirsty to be scouts and got them moving. He was quite unsure how he had performed in the OC’s estimation but felt very anxious. This was increased when he noted that Capt Conkey and CSM Cleland were walking along behind the section as they continued on.

  ‘Oh no! There must be more,’ he thought. A feeling of something close to despair swept through him. Dingo Creek curved right and then ran straight for another hundred metres. It looked awfully like the same scenario and Graham gritted his teeth and prepared to face whatever it was. Then he found himself grinning at Roger. ‘Bugger it!’ he thought. ‘I have probably cashed my chips so I may as well enjoy myself.’

  Over the next twenty paces he calmed down. His breathing slowed and he found he could see clearly. He noted animal tracks going up either bank, and that a clump of large trees grew in the bed of the creek at the next bend. ‘It will be there,’ he decided. He acted on that instinct and signalled to Andrews. He was right. Andrews angled up onto the bank to where he could get a better view. Almost at once he went into a crouch, giving the thumb down ‘enemy’ sign.

  Graham moved the section over against the bank and crept forward to look. By now the rubber vine was giving way to grass and trees and he had to move slowly on a thick carpet of leaf litter and dead sticks. From behind a tree he looked around the bend and saw a small ‘enemy camp’: a couple of hutchies and a smoky fire. Peter was there, with Carnes, LCpl Kate O’Brien and Cpl Forman. Their red shoulder flashes indicated they were ‘enemy’.

  A plan formed itself and Graham had to make himself pause to check it wasn’t the wrong one. After a minute’s thought he decided it was a good plan. With that confidence he slid back and called in Roger. With a stick he drew a sketch map in the sand and explained what he wanted to happen. He was aware that Capt Conkey and CSM Cleland were standing listening but now it did not bother him.

  Roger went up to place Andrews and Lucy in position on the side of the bank as the ‘fire support’ while Graham led the others back twenty five metres, then up a cattle pad on the right that he had noticed earlier. This brought them out in fairly open, flat country on top. After another quick explanation he led them along the top of the bank, keeping well back and using the clumps of rubber vines and thorn bushes as cover. When he was opposite the clump of big trees Graham lined his group up in extended line facing the creek and signalled them to walk forward.

  The ‘attack’ went well. As Graham’s assault reached the top of the bank Roger’s group opened fire. The assault was able to slither down the bank side by side, the slope being suitable for this and free of vines. In a minute Peter’s group were all pretending to be dead.

  ‘That went well,’ Graham thought, returning Kirsty’s grin as they stopped on the other bank. He began to detail people to search in pairs but was stopped by Capt Conkey.

  “That was good Cpl Kirk. Now, take you patrol up this track here towards the river,” he said, pointing up another animal pad on the other bank.

  Graham nodded and changed the scouts to Di and Kirsty. He smiled at Peter. “Got you that time mate,” he said.

  Peter laughed. “You did better than the last mob of drongos. They just charged along the creek bed in a bunch.”

  “See you later then,” Graham replied, signalling to the scouts to move.

  Peter shook his head. “Not till tomorrow. I have to do a recon patrol for the big exercise,” he answered.

  At that Graham again experienced a wave of envy. “Lucky bugger,” he said. He then turned to Cadet Carnes who was sitting looking miserable. “Cheer up. We didn’t really shoot you then.”

  “I wish you had!” Carnes blurted out.

  Graham was shocked and shook his head as Carnes began to cry. ‘Bloody hell!’ he thought. ‘He’s a mess this kid.’ After giving Peter a frown of sympathy he followed the scouts up the bank towards the river.

  To his relief Graham saw that Capt Conkey and CSM Cleland were not following. They walked back down Dingo Creek. Graham breathed more easily and settled down to enjoy himself. The next incident was a ‘body and sniper’ at a clearing amid thick clumps of rubber vines in a dense forest of big trees. The ‘body’ was CUO Masters and Graham guessed that Sgt Grenfell would be the sniper. That made him extra careful and he deployed his cadets under cover. He then directed the scouts where to search and they found Sgt Grenfell without getting caught in the open.<
br />
  CUO Masters stood up, dusting himself down as he did. “That was good work Four Section, the best one yet. Now follow the track to the river bank.”

  Graham glowed at the praise and smiled happily at the section. They looked pleased with themselves too and Graham had an urge to give Kirsty a hug when she grinned at him. Resisting the urge he signalled move, sending Halyday and Roger as the scouts.

  The next section of track was cut through 200 metres of dense rubber vines among very tall trees. The whole thing formed a gloomy forest and Graham hoped they would not have to battle though it. They didn’t. They came out on the bank of the Bunyip above a lovely little island of rocks and grass. The island had a few trees growing on it and looked very inviting. The water either side of the island was crystal clear and looked to be about waist deep. Beyond that was a wide stretch of white sand and pebbles about 500 metres across. This terminated in a line of steep, red soil bluffs which marked the far bank.

  Lt Standish sat in the shade of a tree with a radio and First Aid kit. She directed them on along a faint track on top of the bank to their right. For 300 metres nothing happened. Then they had a battle with the Hutchie Men, who suddenly sprang up in their yowie suits.

  “Make you crap in pants then eh Kirky?” Porno said after the battle. Graham denied this heatedly, although he had got a fright. The Hutchie Men all laughed and sent the section on along the top of the bank. The trail was hard to follow, just a few vines or branches snipped clear but Graham was now enjoying himself.

  500 metres upstream they halted where a dry ‘anabranch’ (flood overflow channel) joined the main river. The water in the main channel flowed cool and clear close under the trees and the section stopped by mutual consent to have a drink.