The Cadet Under-Officer

by Christopher Cummings

  “A girl!” Both men bent forward to peer at her.

  Graham began to perspire with anxiety. He nodded and replied, “Yes, a girl. I’ve got seven of them, no eight of them, in my platoon. She’s got an upset stomach and the heat’s got at her.” Even as he said this Graham mentally kicked himself for getting the number wrong and for then correcting it.

  The burly man peered suspiciously at Elizabeth’s recumbent form. “We are looking for a girl,” he said.

  Graham nodded. “Yes, I know you are. We spent an hour this morning with the whole platoon searching the bush over near the highway with your superintendent – what’s his name?”

  “Bargheese, Indian chap?” the burly man replied.

  “Yes, that’s him. And we’ve just searched all these gullies and one of my sections is searching now with one of your men over the other side of that ridge,” Graham added, pointing to the direction the men had come from.

  The two men stood uncertainly and looked around. At that moment Cadet Rebecca Robinson, long blonde hair and very obviously a girl, came into view working her way down the creek. The men stared at her and Graham saw the burly one frown and shake his head.

  Graham continued: “Sorry. We haven’t seen the girl and probably our being here has chased her off somewhere else.” He was striving to retain the initiative and to master his fear.

  The burly man looked around. “You’ve searched all this area then?” he asked.

  “Yes, from the highway all the way across to the fence further down this creek. One of my corporals is down there. You might ask her,” Graham said, trying to sound helpful.

  The men set off in that direction, almost standing on Elizabeth as they did. They were obviously not amused at trudging around the bush in the heat. Graham felt such a wave of relief he found his hands and knees were trembling.

  “Ok, Liz, relax. They’ve gone,” he murmured.

  Elizabeth moved the hat aside and looked up at him, a thankful smile brightening her tired and dirty face. She was filled with relief, gratitude and admiration. But she was now also feeling very stiff and sore and quite sick and she didn’t like the heat, the dirt and the ants. The bush wasn’t a place she liked or was familiar with. After a cautious look around she sat up and had another drink. “Thank you. What will you do now?” she asked.

  The question put Graham on a spot as it hit right into the decision he was wrestling with. He made part of it. “In the short term I’m going to help you. I’m convinced by what I’ve read. What we’ve got to do is hide you and then arrange to keep you safe while we get help.”

  “How will you do that?”

  Graham shrugged. “I’m not entirely sure but I’ve got some ideas. You’ll have to trust me a lot,” he replied. As he spoke he was tossing ideas around, trying to arrange the information into the logical problem solving sequence of the army ‘Appreciation’. ‘At least now I have clarified my Aim,’ he thought. From that the other decisions became easier and more practical. The ‘enemy’ were also clearer.

  He said: “Look Liz, I’m going for a walk to check on how the training is going. I’ll be twenty minutes or half an hour. You stay here and keep lying down. You should be alright. I don’t think those two men will come back.”

  Elizabeth nodded but looked unhappy. Graham set off down the gully. He needed to get away on his own to do some hard thinking and he also wanted to check where the two men had gone and what they were doing.

  Five minutes walk brought him to the end of a low spur which gave him a view down the creek for two hundred metres. From behind cover he watched the two men talking to Margaret and three cadets. Satisfied the enemy were out of the way for the moment he turned left and headed up the gentle ridge, subconsciously making his way through the trees without tripping or treading on dry sticks, his mind working furiously in an agony of decision.

  Graham knew this was ‘adult’ stuff; too big for him to handle. ‘I need adult help and that meant the teachers who are the Officers of Cadets,’ he told himself. They were people he knew and trusted but he also saw that if he didn’t handle it right they might just hand Elizabeth over to the police or security men believing they were doing the right thing.

  Exactly how the police came into things puzzled Graham. Were they in it? ‘They can’t all be,’ he decided, so perhaps it was just one corrupt officer? He had no way of knowing but it made it clear that they had to be avoided, at least here. ‘Therefore we can’t turn to them for help,’ he decided.

  It was also clear to Graham that he had been very lucky and that he couldn’t hope to keep hiding Elizabeth and moving her from hiding place to hiding place. ‘If I do then some cadet will see her. They will know who she is and the cat will be out of the bag.’

  As he walked, deep in thought, the revving of a car engine penetrated his consciousness. Curious to know what was happening he walked towards it, coming to the edge of the timber near the junction of the Sandy Ridge track and the Canning Road.

  Lt McEwen’s army car was bogged in the soft sand. A NORMAC security man was trying to push it clear while she remained in the driver’s seat. Graham walked over. He saw that the OOC had turned a bit too wide when leaving the formed road and had put her wheels onto soft sand. Graham put down his webbing and joined the security man. They both pushed but to no avail.

  A car pulled up: the police sergeant. He walked over and joined them. Then a truck came up the hill from the Canning River and stopped and the grazier who owned ‘Canning Park’ Station got out. Lt McEwen was pink with embarrassment and Graham was struck by how four men could just arrive in minutes in the middle of this relatively isolated area. The males all got behind the car and this time there was enough muscle power to push it onto the firmer sand of the track.

  Graham spoke to Lt McEwen: “Miss, are you coming to watch our training?”

  She said yes and Graham pointed to where Cpl Kenny’s section was just stopping in the shade at the top of the gully. As Graham talked to Lt McEwen about how she had bogged the car, he overheard the police sergeant ask the security man:

  “Where’s your boss?”

  “Dunno. Off in the helicopter somewhere. He landed to search near a windpump I think, over that way,” replied the man.

  The police sergeant replied: “Yeah, well, I hope he finds this girl soon. I can’t keep six men out here tonight.” The sergeant turned to the cattleman and warned him to keep his house locked and to watch for the girl. Lt McEwen thanked them all for their help, then drove off towards the bivouac.

  The grazier also left and Graham had no reason to stay so set off walking towards camp. The policeman also went, leaving the NORMAC man with his Landcruiser parked at the junction.

  As he walked Graham knew he had to make a decision and it seemed to make his steps slower and his boots heavier. By the time he reached Cpl Kenny’s squad he had decided on his next move. Lt McEwen joined them. Graham remembered to ask how the search had gone. As he talked he noted the security man who had been with Cpl Kenny again sitting on the log in the bivouac area. Once Graham was sure Roger was clear on how to swap Margaret’s section with Cpl Sheehan’s, Graham caught the officer’s eye.

  “Excuse me Miss. Could you come with me for a minute please,” he murmured.

  Lt McEwen came over, a quizzical smile on her face. Sandra was in her mid-twenties. She had a pleasant, open face, blue eyes and curly brown hair. She thought Graham was attractive both as a young man and a personality and enjoyed being with his platoon. Graham liked and admired her. He thought she was pretty and secretly admired her. More importantly at that moment, he was sure she was a strong personality; a competent and common-sense person.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “It’s something very important, Miss. I’ve got to show you. Then I can explain it. We can watch the training as we go,” he replied.

  That got her more worried than interested but Graham wouldn’t elaborate and they set off down beside the gully. As they walked Graham t
alked to the cadets they passed while trying to decide exactly what to say.

  They arrived at Elizabeth’s hiding place before he had sorted out how best to explain. Elizabeth looked up as their boots crunched towards her on the dead leaves and stones. Then she sat up, holding the cloth hat on her head.

  Lt McEwen stopped and looked, seeing at first only an upset girl cadet who had been crying and then her mind took in that it was Elizabeth Schein from her Year 10 Geography class. Only as she spoke did she sort out that Elizabeth was not in the cadets.

  “Elizabeth! What? What are you doing here? Are you alright?”

  “Please Miss!” Tears welled into Elizabeth’s eyes and she had trouble speaking. “Please Miss, help me! Those men are after me! They’ll kill me if they catch me!”

  “What men?” Lt McEwen replied, mystified. She knelt and took out her handkerchief. Then he mouth fell open. “Oh! ... You are the girl the police are searching for!”

  Graham, who had been standing watching, now knelt also. “It’s not like that Miss McEwen, truly it isn’t.”

  The lieutenant, puzzled and disturbed, searched the boy’s anxious and earnest face and then the girl’s, now tear-streaked and beseeching. Here was a mystery! It was obvious CUO Kirk had been hiding the girl but Lt McEwen also knew him well enough to be sure he would only have done it if he had good reason.

  “Alright Graham, I think you’d better explain,” she said. She sat down and Graham did likewise.

  Graham looked at Elizabeth. “You start Liz. Then I’ll take over,” he prompted.

  For the second time that day Elizabeth told her story to an incredulous listener. She was feeling more confidence now as Miss McEwen was a teacher, an adult. ‘She will protect me!’ she thought.

  When Elizabeth reached the point where she had met Graham she stopped and he gave an outline of how he had hidden her and of how he misled the searchers. Then he took the evidence out of his pack and began passing it to Lt McEwen to read.

  While Lt McEwen was reading Roger came down the gully and, when he caught sight of them, headed towards them. Graham got up and went to meet him. He looked at his watch. It was nearly 4pm.

  Roger reported: “All the cadets have been through the activity now, sir.”

  “Good. OK, Roger, collect the whole platoon and wait down at the fence. I’ll be a quarter of an hour or so.”

  Roger was a bit puzzled but went off to collect those cadets still up the gully. Graham went back to where a very thoughtful looking Lt McEwen was reading the documents. He felt that a crisis of decision was again upon them. “Well, Miss, are you convinced?” he asked, sitting down again.

  “I believe your story Elizabeth,” she said at last, a worried frown wrinkling her brow, “and I think Graham, that you have done the right thing.”

  “What will we do?” he asked.

  “It seems straightforward. We must hide Elizabeth until this is safely over and we must get the evidence to the authorities.”

  “Not to that policemen here?” queried Graham anxiously.

  Lt McEwen shook her head. “No. I don’t know if he is involved or not. I think not from his lack of interest but the local police are co-operating with the mining company in the search, even if unwittingly, so we must avoid them. We must look for the simplest plan we can.”

  “Could we just put Elizabeth and the briefcase in your car and drive over to Company HQ and get Captain Conkey to deal with it,” Graham suggested.

  “No, there’s a policeman there at the telephone. I’ve just been over and Capt Conkey is very worried and wondering if your platoon shouldn’t return to the army camp while this search is going on,” Lt McEwen replied.

  “Could you drive her to Townsville then Miss? It’s only an hour or so?” Graham suggested. He felt uncomfortable making the suggestion as it could place the teacher’s life in danger. ‘She would then be in the place of the now dead Uncle Jack!’ he thought.

  Lt McEwen looked thoughtful. “I don’t know if it’s a good idea. There are police roadblocks at Mingela and at Stuart on the edge of Townsville and they are searching all cars. Besides, I don’t think I should leave your platoon without an OOC for so long,” she replied. Lt McEwen pondered the idea. It was the easiest but not the safest plan. She also considered leaving Elizabeth in hiding and driving with the documents to Townsville but she wondered what sort of action she might get out of the Federal authorities at 6pm at night. She worked out the timings and decided it would possibly be mid-morning the next day before anything effective could be done.

  After a minute Lt McEwen said, “I don’t want to make a hasty decision. It’s getting late now and it would be better if I went tomorrow after I’ve had a chance to explain to Captain Conkey. Can we hide Elizabeth till then?”

  Graham nodded. “Yes, but she’ll be very cold and uncomfortable tonight and we’ll have to sneak away to feed her,” he replied.

  Elizabeth looked anxiously at Graham. “Do you mean spend the night in the bush on my own?” she asked.

  Graham nodded. “Yes. You’ll be quite safe. There are no lions or tigers.”

  At the thought of being left alone in the bush at night Elizabeth paled with fear. “Oh Miss, please don’t leave me out here on my own. I’ll be terrified.”

  To Graham, who loved the bush, this was just silly but the teacher understood the girl’s real terror, so plain on her face and in her voice. She looked at Graham. “Can we sneak her into camp later I wonder?” she asked.

  “It depends if that security man is still there,” Graham said. “He was when we came down. here.” Then he hesitated before saying what was in his heart. He knew he was a very trusting person but he believed that his cadets respected him and that they would do what he asked. He said: “Miss, I think the best place to hide Elizabeth is in our camp, amongst the other cadets. Then she’s not obvious like she is out here. I’m sure my platoon can be relied on. Anyway, if they all know the crooks can’t do much, even if they find out. There are too many of us. And if the security man leaves, so much the better. We can give Elizabeth a good feed and she needs some doctoring on her cuts and scratches. Then we can think out what we should do.”

  “You mean tell your whole platoon the story and trust them?” Lt McEwen asked. She was hesitant as it would dramatically increase their chance of the secret being exposed but she also saw the force of the argument. If thirty people all knew then Elizabeth was no longer in as much danger. The doubt was - what would the crooks do? Would they simply run away to make good their escape, or would they use desperate measures to regain the briefcase?

  Lt McEwen said: “I suppose if the worst comes to the worst we can give the crooks the briefcase if they find out and threaten us.”

  Graham felt a surge of excitement. “We can do better than that, Miss! We can copy some of this stuff and even if they find out and threaten to use force we can bargain if we hide it, or I can run off into the bush with it. They’d have a real job to catch me!” he said. He didn’t mention he also had the gun.

  “But how long could you hide for?” Lt McEwen asked.

  Graham grinned. “Weeks if I have to. I can survive in the bush Miss. Anyway I wouldn’t worry about that. I’ve got a compass and a map. I’d just walk to Townsville cross-country. I’d be alright.” At the back of his mind was the adventure the previous year when he and his friends had been hunted for two days by Communist Partisans on the mountains behind Atherton. The memory gave him confidence and a pulse of excitement surged through him. ‘I could do that,’ he told himself.

  Lt McEwen was surprised at the idea and worried. “Why, it’s over a hundred kilometres!” she cried.

  “That’s alright Miss. I can do thirty kilometres a day through this open savannah woodland stuff. There’s no jungle or anything and only one or two ranges of hills. I could do it in four or five days and it would be the last thing they would expect. I’d be safe enough.”

  Lt McEwen knew Graham did a lot of bush-walking and was very
fit. She realized he was not proposing a wild idea but a sound plan he was confident he could carry out. To hide her concern she said: “You’ve been watching too many movies.” But she grinned at his enthusiasm and felt better. Then she nodded. “Alright, we’ll take Elizabeth to our bivouac and tonight we can make copies and plan our next move.”

  Elizabeth gasped with relief. “Oh, thank you Miss!” She smiled for the first time and little cupid’s arrows dug into Graham’s heart.

  Graham stood up and said: “I’ve got the platoon waiting down the creek there. I’ll bring them up and we will explain it to them here in case that security man is still at our camp.” Without waiting for agreement he strode off down the creek.

  The platoon was all sitting in the dappled shade of the gum trees telling jokes and grumbling at waiting. Graham called out as he approached: “Righto! On your feet! Follow me. Single file, Ten Section, Eleven Section, Twelve Section.”

  In a minute they were trudging up the creek in a long line. Roger, as platoon sergeant, brought up the rear. It was still quite warm even at 4:30pm and Graham found he had raised a sweat. The sky was cloudless and promised a rapid temperature drop when the sun was gone.

  Within ten minutes Graham had the platoon seated in a tight group on the sloping bank of the gully just below the dyke. Then he ran his eyes from person to person, wondering if he was making a mistake. Was it just his vanity which made him think they would follow him with blind trust? Would one of them prove to be a weak link and let the secret slip from unguarded lips? Or worse still - was one of them a potential Judas?

  The cadets sat silently watching him, conscious that something unusual was going on even before he spoke. Well! ‘I have to take the plunge,’ Graham decided, ‘to find the true measure of my leadership.’ He took off the pack and placed it at his feet and began to tell the story, his voice quiet but firm and convincing.

  Within a few sentences he could tell they were intensely interested and by their faces they appeared convinced that what he was telling them was the truth. As he spoke he watched their faces. Most appeared to be both interested an excited. A few, Margaret’s included, looked anxious. But when Graham noticed Cadet Brenda Woodhouse’s face he got a little shock. She looked both horrified and frightened. For a moment he wavered but then he resumed talking. It took him about fifteen minutes. He passed around some of the evidence and let them look at it and allowed them to talk among themselves for a few minutes.