The Cadet Corporal

by Christopher Cummings

  Moynihan called out and Pigsy snickered. Graham flamed with shame. ‘They are so loud CUO Masters must be able to hear them. He will think I am a useless bloody section commander!’ That thought was followed instantly by an even gloomier one. ‘He must already, seeing I have been split off with the rejects!’

  That made him angry. ‘Bugger it! I’ll show him!’ He started walking back along the line. ‘The worst Pigsy and Co can do is bash me,’ he reasoned, but he wasn’t sure what strategy to adopt. As he passed the other cadets he could tell by their faces that they understood very clearly that the showdown had arrived.

  As he approached The Four they kept joking and talking but he knew they were watching him. He suspected that they were deliberately baiting him and testing how he would react. They were at the back of the section, with Slim, Milson and Bragg ahead of them. Graham gritted his teeth as he tried to think up a plan to solve the problem. He saw LCpl Franks glance at him and that cheered him up. ‘Franks is scared!’ he realized. ‘So it is not four, only three.’

  Then more advice from his father helped clarify his plan of attack. Graham’s father had been a ship’s captain for twenty years and was obviously a tough customer. ‘If there is a mutiny,’ he had said one day to his sons, ‘you single out the ringleader and deal with him. The others won’t interfere. They are just spineless curs.’

  ‘Pigsy is the ringleader,’ Graham thought as he approached them. With that in mind he forced himself to stride across to confront Pigsy. For a moment the two stood facing each other. Graham spoke quietly but clearly, “I told you people to keep quiet. If you don’t, then I will have to take some action to make you.”

  Pigsy sneered. “Haw! You and what army? You can go and get stuffed.”

  “I told you to be quiet,” Graham said, his feelings of desperation rapidly mounting. To add to his feeling of stress he was aware that the other members of the section were all watching and listening. ‘If I lose this they will all despise me. I will be finished as a section commander,’ he thought. That helped stiffen his resolve.

  “You are just a boot licker!” Pigsy said, spitting at Graham’s feet to emphasize his defiance.

  “I’m the corporal,” Graham said, gesturing to his two stripes. Even as he did it he had a sinking feeling that he had made a mistake by saying that.

  Pigsy jeered and laughed. Waters and Moynihan laughed as well and moved to take up threatening positions behind him. Pigsy said, “You’ve only got two stripes because you crawl to the officers. You’re just a gutless weakling.”

  Graham felt his stomach turn over and he knew he was really scared. But he was also desperate and knew instinctively that this was a battle of wills he had to win, or at least go down fighting. He put his hands on his hips and said, “Either turn down the noise and do what you are told or I will take you back to the camp now.”

  Pigsy turned to his mates and laughed. “Big man! He will take us back!” He turned back to Graham and bunched his fists onto his hips. “How will you do that you gutless jerk? All you can do is dob us in later, and that will just prove you are weak.”

  That was what Graham thought too and he now tensed, ready for open conflict. Among his options was the one frequently used by American ‘heroes’ in movies of beating Pigsy in a fight. To his own surprise he found he wasn’t afraid of fighting him, but it went so much against all he had been taught about leadership that he rejected it as an option. ‘That is not the way the Australian Army does things, and it is sinking to his level,’ he thought. But he was still stumped for a workable plan.

  After a moment’s tense silence he shrugged and said, “Then you can walk back to camp now, and explain why when you get there. That way you can put your version in with the officers before I do.”

  “Make us!” Pigsy retorted, curling his lip.

  Graham looked him straight in the eye. Noting the flickering in the irises he suddenly thought, ‘He’s scared!’ That emboldened him. ‘I’ve come this far. I can’t just let this fizzle out now or it will just fester and resurface. I have to settle it.’ Having resolved that, he said, “Either agree to do the right thing or get going.”

  “Get stuffed!”

  “You are finished Pigsy. Do as you are told.”

  “Oh yeah! What’ll you do? Dob us in the officers?”

  At that Graham smiled. “Of course. That’s how the army system works. It has to work that way or the bullies like you will win. You think I haven’t got the guts to report you because you will tease me for being a dobber. And you think you can frighten me with threats. Well, you are wrong on both counts. You are the one who hasn’t got the guts. You aren’t even game to do your own dirty work. You have to get other people to tease little kids like Braggy.”

  At that Pigsy lost his temper. Graham saw his eyes, already suffused with a reddish tinge, narrow. He sensed what was coming and braced himself for it. Suddenly he knew that he was winning. But the battle wasn’t over and it hurt. Pigsy lashed out. The punch took Graham full in the face, knocking him back several steps.

  There was shocked gasp from the watching cadets. Graham’s head spun and he had trouble keeping his feet but he managed to keep his own hands by his sides. With a disdainful sneer he taunted Pigsy. “That’s the end of you Pigsy. Criminal assault in front of witnesses. Now we can involve the police as well as the officers.”

  “You gutless shit! You aren’t even game to fight,” Pigsy snarled. He jumped forward and punched again.

  It took a real effort of willpower but Graham stood and wore it. The blow knocked him to his knees. Shaking his head to stay conscious and to fight off the dizziness he straightened up. “Striking a superior officer eh?” he commented. “You are finished Pigsy. Cadet Carnes, give me that radio so I can call the OC.”

  For a second Graham thought he had provoked Pigsy into completely losing control but he saw the eyes flickering and the raised fist and knew it was almost over. Neither of Pigsy’s mates made any move to help. The only person who tried to interfere was Slim. He cried, “Hey! Stop it!”

  “Stay out of this Cadet Lyle,” Graham replied. He had trouble speaking clearly because his lips were going numb and he could taste blood. Pigsy stood glaring at him but looking baffled. When he did not punch again Graham said, “Right Cadet Pike. This is the deal, and it isn’t open to negotiation. Co-operate and make this patrol work and we will forget that you lost control. If you don’t want that then we move directly to the highway bridge and call in the officers. Take it or leave it.”

  Pigsy glared at him but looked unsure. He glanced at his friends but they had now edged away, clearly not wanting to get involved. Graham breathed out and set his jaw. There was blood trickling down his face but he resisted the urge to wipe it off. He sensed he had the upper hand but now had to turn it into complete victory. He stepped closer to Pigsy and looked him straight in the eyes. “Well? What is it to be? Make your mind up, and fast.”

  Pigsy licked his lips and again looked to his cronies for support but Graham noted Moynihan shaking his head. Rather than give Pigsy any time to think of some new tactic Graham said, “Right, to the highway,” and spun on his heel.

  “Wait!” Pigsy cried.

  Graham paused. “No negotiations,” he called over his shoulder. “You either obey orders or you are in deep legal trouble.”

  “Bastard!” Pigsy snarled.

  “Abusing me will just make it worse,” Graham said. He turned to the other members of the patrol. “Come on, let’s get this over with, then we might be allowed to go on with the exercise.”

  As Graham started walking Pigsy gave a strangled cry. For a moment Graham tensed, thinking Pigsy was going to attack him from behind. Instead Pigsy cried out, “Alright! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.”

  Graham turned to face him and said levelly, “I did. So, are you saying you will obey orders?”

  “Yes,” Pigsy replied.

  Inside Graham heaved a massive mental sigh of relief. With an effort he k
ept his voice level and his face stern. “Then let’s get on with the patrol.”

  CHAPTER 29

  DECOYS

  As Graham walked back to his place in the line he felt that something fundamental had changed. To be sure he was shaking with relief and his heart was hammering but deep inside he felt a new sense of certainty. ‘I can do this,’ he thought. It was as though he saw the world through new eyes. ‘Pigsy and his type are just weak bullies,’ he realized. ‘Even if it comes to a confrontation it is better to stand up to them than to give in.’

  None of the others said anything and Graham did not want further discussion. He nodded to Halyday and Andrews and pointed the way he wanted them to go. They turned and resumed their scouting. A quick glance behind showed that the whole patrol was following. Pigsy and his mates all looked angry but there was something else. At first Graham thought they were subdued, but then he decided they were scared. ‘They know they overstepped the mark and that I have called their bluff,’ he told himself.

  The tactical problems of avoiding patrols from the ‘enemy’ now absorbed Graham’s thoughts and he scanned carefully in every direction, hoping to spot any enemy before they saw his people. When he glanced back every few seconds to check that the others were following he was continually surprised at how many people there seemed to be. For much of the time the last few cadets in the patrol were out of sight behind bushes as they snaked across the slope.

  It was only then that it really dawned on Graham just how big his patrol was. He had known it intellectually from the moment he had been briefed but now it really struck him emotionally. ‘I’ve got eleven in my patrol, counting me,’ he realized. For a while he mulled over this, then shook his head in puzzled wonder. ‘That is nearly half a platoon in size,’ he thought. Most of the platoons only had about 20 in them; a HQ of 2 and three sections of six or seven.

  That got him thinking. ‘We are the decoys, but why so many? And why not give the command to a sergeant or the CSM?’ There were at least two possible answers. One was profoundly depressing. ‘We are all the rejects so it doesn’t matter if we get wiped out. That is why we are the decoys.’ The other thought only came later, that maybe Capt Conkey had enough faith in him to trust him to do a good job. After considering this Graham shook his head. ‘No, he wouldn’t have broken up my good section in that case. This mob will be no loss to the company.’

  The role of decoy made him angry. ‘We are the expendable pawns,’ he thought, using a term Capt Conkey had employed during a history lesson. ‘While we draw the flak the good troops get through.’ Looking at the route he had been told to take and the ground he was actually crossing seemed to reinforce this. The thorn bushes were becoming more scattered and he was getting long views of several hundred metres through the gaps.

  ‘Any enemy at the highway will see us,’ he decided. That caused him to signal a halt. They had moved about 700 metres across the gentle slope and he knew the highway should be only a short distance ahead. It was twilight by this time but visibility was still quite good. Overhead the sky was darkening and the first stars were twinkling.

  ‘We had better find a hide till it is fully dark,’ Graham thought.

  There looked to be a slight dip off down to the left about fifty metres away so he moved them that way. The dip turned out to be a shallow depression that deepened very slowly as it ran off down towards the Anabranches. After following if down for another fifty paces Graham decided it was the best he would get. A small thicket of thorn trees offered some cover from the direction of the highway.

  He moved the patrol in and sat them in a circle facing out. When all had arrived he said to them, “We will wait here till we hear some action before we cross the highway. No talking, no lights and no fires. Just rest.”

  Even as he said this Halyday hissed and pointed up the slope to the west. Graham looked and in the gloom saw a line of cadets walking northwards across the slope a hundred metres away. Instantly he dropped to a crouch and peeked through a bush. “Down! Enemy patrol,” he whispered.

  The others lay flat and Andrew felt a surge of excitement that left his heart hammering and his throat dry. His mind raced as he worried about what to do if the enemy had seen them. But the way they were walking quickly indicated that the enemy were unaware of their presence.

  ‘They are walking along the vehicle track heading towards the gate we came through,’ Graham decided. That caused him a grim smile. ‘If we had been a few minutes later they would have spotted us moving.’

  Waters poked his head up to watch and then croaked, “They are getting behind us. We will be trapped!”

  “Rot! We know they are there and we will just detour around them,” Graham replied. “Anyway, we will worry about them on the way back. First we need to get to our objective.”

  He waited until the enemy patrol had vanished towards the river then said, “I will do a recce with Cadet Halyday to find the best place to cross.”

  The others looked at him in the dusk and no-one argued or disagreed. Graham was careful not to provoke another incident with The Four by not referring to the previous crisis. Once he was sure they understood he left Franks in charge with Bragg as sentry then set off towards the highway.

  While moving up the gentle slope from the dip Graham went at a crouch but closer to the crest he went down on all fours. That was a mistake he soon learned. The ground was littered with small, sharp stones and thousands of burrs. Most were the tiny twin pronged ‘bindis’, but some were the viciously sharp, three-pronged ‘goat heads’. After suffering several in his hands and one in his knee he gave up crawling and went back to crouching.

  Little by little the other side of the slope became visible as he moved cautiously from tree to bush. That he was close to the highway was plain from the frequent passing of motor vehicles. Then he was able to see over the crest and stopped to observe. Halyday ghosted up to settle under cover beside him. The ground sloped away in two directions at such a gentle angle he could not see most of it. Only a few clues to the location of the highway were visible: a fence line and the flicker of passing vehicles, most of which now had their headlights on.

  Away in the distance, across a wide, grassy plain was the railway bridge. A massive earth embankment led out of the distant hillside across the plain, ending in the huge concrete abutments which were his objective. From his study of the map Graham knew that from somewhere up to his right a dirt road led down from the highway across the grassy plain to the end of the rail bridge. In the twilight Graham was unable to make out any details and could not see any sign of the defenders.

  ‘They must be in position by now?’ he thought.

  Even as he did he tensed. From about a hundred metres in front of him a voice had spoken. Another answered and a third laughed. Yet another voice called angrily, “Keep your voices down. We don’t want that Cairns mob to hear us.”

  With a shock Graham realised there was an enemy patrol sitting along the fence. ‘If we’d kept going we would have walked right into their arms!’ That was a rude shock. He breathed out then wondered where other defenders might be, and how to get across the highway. According to the map he was about 300 metres from the end of the highway bridge. ‘There will be guards there for sure,’ he decided. The map also showed that the highway curved south towards the tiny settlement of Bunyip Bend. ‘Might be more at the bend,’ he reasoned. That was where the dirt road to the end of the bridge branched off and it seemed a logical place to put a guard post.

  Then the hair on the back of his neck stood on end. Distinctly on the night air he heard voices muttering- and it was coming from behind him! ‘Bloody idiots!’ he thought. An urgent desire to not get caught was mixed with anger at The Four (He was sure it was them!).

  “Come on Halyday,” Graham hissed. Keeping the bush between him and the enemy patrol he hurried back across the bare, open ground. It was light enough to see where he was putting his feet, yet not dark enough to hide them from any watcher. But the noise w
as more of a threat. ‘Bloody fools!’ he fumed. ‘Why did I have to be lumbered with them?’

  Then the idea came to him. ‘We are the decoys for the company. Why don’t I use them as the decoys for the patrol? That way I get rid of them and they perform a useful function at the same time!’

  It had such elegant appeal, tied as it was to concepts like ‘poetic justice’, that he decided to use it. But first the talking had to be stopped! Moving almost at a trot he hurried back to the dip. As he rounded the bushes Graham saw that The Four were sitting in a group to one side. The other cadets still lay facing out in pairs, as he had positioned them. Standing over them, fists on hips, he glared down at them. In the gloom he could just see their faces.

  “There is an enemy patrol just over at the highway,” he said quietly but coldly. “You people should not be talking. It will give the game away.”

  “Huh, that’s all it is, a stupid bloody game!” Waters replied.

  Graham was about to snap angrily back that it wasn’t a game, but then he realised that the real issue was that his own future and promotion were bound up in succeeding. Instead he changed tack. “I don’t care what you think it is, except that our unit’s reputation is involved. We don’t want those Heatley people jeering at us for being so useless that they can hear us coming from a kilometre away. So stop talking and don’t let your mates down.”

  Pigsy gave him a resentful look but said nothing. Franks looked embarrassed and Moynihan just sat in surly silence.