The Cadet Under-Officer

by Christopher Cummings

  Stephen nodded, the firelight reflecting red off his glasses. “Yeah, that’s right. He went to town about half an hour ago. Went in to see one of my cadets who’s in hospital with suspected chicken pox. He should be back in an hour or so. The CSM and CQ went with him.”

  “I didn’t see a vehicle go past.”

  “There’s another track that goes along the top of the river bank to the Highway Bridge,” Stephen explained.

  Graham looked at his watch, unsure what to do next; to wait or to go and post the letters. The fact that the OC had gone to town was potentially good news. ‘He might have gone to talk to the police,’ he thought. A check of his watch told him it was nearly 2030 and now he was feeling tired from the exertions and excitement of the previous 24 hours. He did some quick calculations. ‘It is 4km to the Roadhouse - an hour at the very least and more likely an hour and a half - then another hour and a half back. It will be nearly midnight by then. The OC will be in bed,’ he thought. Graham decided to wait.

  The three joined in the telling of stories and jokes although Graham was really sick at heart. From time to time he sent one of the others to see if the OC had returned.

  Stephen glanced at him. “You seem a bit down mate. You ok?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Just tired I suppose.”

  “Is it important? Can it wait until tomorrow? You look like you need a good sleep.”

  Graham didn’t want to arouse curiosity by admitting it was important. “Yeah. You’re right. I’ll give him till twenty one thirty, then go home. It can wait. We’ll be down here by seven forty five tomorrow morning anyway,” he replied. He offered Stephen a block of chocolate, then slipped one into his own mouth and lay back with his eyes closed to politely end the conversation; or at least change it. He then realized just how tired he really was and made an effort to relax while the chocolate melted on his tongue.

  He couldn’t sleep though. Cpl Russel was a natural raconteur and told a joke which made him laugh so much he had to hold his stomach. Tears of laughter watered his eyes.

  It was a pleasant enough wait, relaxing with friends but it was getting rapidly colder and the others began wrapping up in blankets or snuggling into sleeping bags. It was also comforting to sit beside his best friend although he felt a bit of a heel not telling him the truth.

  At length headlights lit up the tree tops and a vehicle could be heard. Graham said ‘Goodnight’ and refused offers of nursemaids and guide dogs to help them find their way home. Anxiously he led his two cadets into the darkness and up onto the grassy flat. It took a minute for his eyes to adjust. Away from the river bed it was noticeably colder.

  By the time they reached HQ the vehicle had stopped and turned its lights off. Capt Conkey’s voice could be heard cheerfully calling for coffee and Graham saw him and the CSM and CQ come into the circle of lamp light and sit down. But there were two NORMAC men sitting there so Graham remained in the shadows. He still didn’t want to attract the attention of the NORMAC men.

  ‘They might think it unusual for me to call on the OC at this time of night,’ he decided. For a few minutes he imagined the conversation if he asked the OC if Lt McEwen had spoken to him. ‘If she hasn’t the OC will look worried and ask me questions. That will certainly arouse suspicions,’ Graham thought. ‘And he will get annoyed that I have left my platoon when there is no OOC there.’

  What really nagged at him was not knowing whether Lt McEwen had spoken to the OC or not.

  So Graham waited, hoping the OC would go over to one of the platoons but he seemed happy to sit and talk and sip coffee. Graham and his two companions waited in the shadows, getting colder and more cramped with the passing minutes.

  CSM Brassington looked at her watch and stood up. She said: “I’ll just make sure each platoon has two sentries on roster to keep a fire going all night, sir. Bert, you get HQ to bed. Then I’ll be off to bed too.”

  “Good, Barbara,” Capt Conkey replied. Both Barbara and Bert walked off into the night.

  Out in the darkness Graham shook his head. “Come on sir! Come on! Visit your troops and tuck them all in bed!” he muttered. Anxiously he looked at his watch. It was nearly 2200hrs and his teeth were starting to chatter.

  Fretting with impatience Grahams saw Falls get up and go into a HQ tent. The security man lay down on a stretcher and squirmed his bulk into a sleeping bag. The other security man picked up a radio and spoke for some time, calling up their guard posts. He was obviously going to remain awake. Finally Capt Conkey got up and went to clean his teeth at the back of the tent. Graham edged his group around, hoping the OC would go off to the toilet so he could get him alone in the dark.

  They had to crouch in cover as a group of cadets went past with torches. When Graham looked up Capt Conkey was in the HQ tent shaking out a sleeping bag. All Graham could do was groan with frustration as Capt Conkey spread the sleeping bag beside Falls, then sat on it and took off his boots. After some cheery ‘Goodnights’ he slipped into his sleeping bag and turned his face to the wall.

  CHAPTER 15

  TO BUNYIP BEND

  Graham stood in the darkness experiencing frustration and indecision. It looked like he wasn’t going to get any chance to explain to the OC before Miss McEwen came back with the police and that would hurt the captain’s feelings. Graham knew it was poor military etiquette but believed he had made every reasonable effort. ‘Anyway, I’ve informed Lt McEwen and she is my immediate superior and she has spoken to him,’ Graham rationalized, but that still didn’t make him feel happy.

  “What we gunna do sir?” Livingstone asked.

  The question forced Graham to make a decision. It was getting late and it was definitely getting colder. His first thought was to just go back up to Black Knoll to wait for Miss McEwen to come back but his conscience niggled at him. The letters were the alternate plan. ‘It is better to be sure than sorry,’ he thought. In spite of his fatigue and the cold he made up his mind. “We are going to the shop to post some letters,” he replied.

  LCpl Walsh gave a snort to express his discontent. “What, now! At this time of night! I’m cold,” he grumbled.

  Graham stiffened at the insubordinate tone of voice yet knew he couldn’t push the issue too hard for fear of lack of co-operation. The situation called for leadership. “Yes Lance Corporal Walsh, now! We have important letters to post. I picked you to come because you are good in the bush at night and we are depending on you.”

  Walsh was somewhat mollified and made no further complaint. Rather than allow him the opportunity to argue Graham turned and began walking along an animal pad. The others followed in silence. They went downstream between two parallel sand dunes covered with short grass and trees. The fires of the first year platoons were soon out of sight.

  Graham followed a track down through the trees in almost total darkness, using his hands to feel and to protect his eyes from sharp twigs. The patrol came out on the edge of the water. It looked black and brooding in the starlight. There was the faint murmur of water over rocks downstream on their left but otherwise the night seemed totally still.

  The plop of a fish startled them and the three cadets looked nervously into the dark shadows under the overhanging branches. A series of thoughts crossed Grahams mind: ‘This is the Bunyip River, there might be bunyips.’ Then he felt ashamed of himself. ‘Don’t be stupid! They are just mythical monsters. Don’t be scared. Go on coward, be the heroic leader.’

  Walsh forced the issue by asking: “How do we get across?”

  “Just wade Walshy. This river is only ankle deep in the dry season,” Graham replied. To prove this he stepped forward. His foot slipped on mud and he fell a metre into knee deep water with a loud splash. As he struggled to regain his footing he fell back to sit on the slimy verge.

  With a muttered curse Graham got his balance and began to try to wade across. His boots instantly sank into soft ooze and in two steps the water was up to his waist. He felt himself sinking fast into even deeper water. With
a lot of splashing and noise he squirmed and managed to turn around. For a moment it seemed that he would slide even deeper and he clawed at the mud and grass of the bank. After a short struggle he regained the bank, soaked and mortified at having made himself look silly. What really annoyed him was that he had made the same mistake returning from a night exercise two years before, except he had come from the other side further upstream.

  Livingstone’s voice came to him in droll tones. “Only ankle deep Walshy, in you go.”

  “Ankle deep on a bloody twenty foot bunyip,” Walsh replied.

  Graham clenched his teeth and struggled to control his emotions. “Shut up you two and pull me out!” he snapped.

  They hauled Graham up the bank and he stood there dripping, listening to see if anyone had heard his splashing. The water temperature had been slightly above the air temperature and it had felt warm while he was in it, but now the chill began to bite through the wet clothes.

  Walsh again put him on the spot. “What now?” he queried.

  “What now SIR!” Graham bit back.

  “What now sir?” Walsh said in a sulky tone.

  “We will cross at the rapids downstream. It’ll be shallow there,” Graham said. He began squelching his way through the trees. It was slow going and they stumbled and tripped a few times and Walsh bumped his head on a branch and swore. The sound of the rapids grew louder as they approached them. The noise was still only a bit above a friendly gurgle as the river was flowing so slowly.

  Graham took his map from his trouser pocket. To his relief it was still dry in its plastic case. He added the brown notebook to it, then checked the letters. They were dry. “You’d better empty your trouser pockets,” he advised.

  Walsh chuckled. “It’ll be right sir. It’s only ankle deep this time of year,” he replied.

  Livingstone quietly chortled at this and Graham fumed but said nothing. Burning with embarrassment he began making his way out across the rocks. These were slimy with moss and it was difficult for him to keep his balance. He had to use his hands to steady himself on the exposed rocks while moving each boot to a firm footing in the water. To try to balance on the exposed rocks was too risky. To help him he picked up a stick from among some driftwood.

  The water channel was fifty paces wide and only the centre, about ten paces across, was free of large rocks. There was a swirl there and the water varied from knee to thigh depth. Graham edged out slowly with his back to the gentle current. Behind him he heard Livingstone slip. His equipment clattered on the rocks then he went down with a loud splash. There was muttering and swearing as Livingstone floundered in the water. Then there was another splash and Walsh cried out in alarm and disgust as he also slipped and sat down in the water.

  Walsh wasn’t impressed and let his bad humour be known in a burst of mumbled swearing. By then Graham had reached the rocks on the far side and he waited till the other two reached him.

  The three walked through a narrow belt of flood twisted trees and up a small rise of sand and pebbles. In front of them extended nearly 500 metres of flat, open sand; the dry part of the river bed. This ended in a dark mass which Graham knew was the far bank - at this point steep and eroded ‘cliffs’ of clay and sand. For a few moments Graham stood and was flooded with memories from the previous year’s annual camp. He and Peter had been up in the thorn scrub beyond the cliffs as checkpoints on a night exercise called ‘Bunyip Ghost’ and he had enjoyed it immensely.

  ‘That was a really difficult camp but a good one,’ he thought as he started walking. Having done two night exercises in the area gave him a lot of confidence and he just led the way to the right, trudging upstream almost in the centre of the dry river bed. Their boots scrunched on the layer of hard sand and pebbles, breaking through a thin crust into soft sand. It was hard going and quickly warmed them up. Two curlews skittered away on their long legs, then rose on flapping wings with cries of alarm.

  By walking along the river bed Graham was keeping his navigation simple. The river curved slowly around to the West, then the South West, in a huge sweeping curve. Both banks were just a line of blackness under the stars and the sand was a pale, never-ending mass. After a kilometre of marching along it Graham was sweating and his leg muscles were feeling the effort.

  A bright light came abruptly into view at the edge of the bank on their left. It was a lantern. Graham had been expecting it. ‘That is the end of that dirt vehicle track which comes down to the river bank from the highway,’ he thought. He did not need to check his map because two years earlier when he was a corporal he had led his patrol through that gate during the exercise to raid the rail bridge.

  Graham halted and whispered to the others. “That’s a NORMAC OP. There is probably someone awake so we will slow down. No talking and watch out for rocks. Not a sound,” he whispered.

  “Is there a lookout on the other bank?” Walsh asked.

  Graham glanced at the dark tree line to his right and shook his head. From previous camps he knew that the north bank was a real jungle and he doubted any of the crooks would be in it at night. “Not that I could see on their map. I don’t think they've got enough people. There might be one during the day but not now,” he replied.

  They continued their trudge in silence, their breathing and boots sounding very loud to Graham in the still of the night. As he walked he edged away to the right so that they were at least 300 metres from the light. A vehicle could be seen there, the glass of its headlights and windscreen reflecting the lantern light. Graham shivered. ‘If that vehicle’s lights are turned on they will bathe this whole river bed in light. We will be caught like flies on a ceiling,’ he worried.

  After five minutes of slow movement Graham stopped and listened. There was no sound from the vicinity of the lantern and he could not detect any movement. Graham wondered if there was a guard and whether he was sitting in the vehicle - perhaps watching them and waiting his moment to switch on the lights? ‘If there is he’s put the lantern in the wrong place,’ Graham thought. ‘It will be shining half in his eyes and be ruining his night sight.’ His fieldcraft training told him that the lookout would have been far more dangerous and far more effective with no lantern.

  Graham decided it was unlikely any watcher could see three tiny shapes moving against the black background of trees in the starlight so he began walking again, slowly and carefully. They came to a shallow stretch of water which angled across their front. By following the edge of it they stayed dry but were forced slowly towards the light. Graham stopped and looked at the water. It was only a shallow trickle moving at a slow murmur but was twenty or thirty metres wide.

  “We gunna cross it sir?” Walsh whispered.

  “No, we’ll keep beside it.”

  “Only be ankle deep this time of year,” Livingstone muttered. Graham ignored the comment but his ears burned.

  Ten minutes later the lantern was almost out of sight behind them. Graham relaxed a bit. They started to encounter rocks. Most were only a metre or so high but there were several large sheets of water smoothed granite and a few larger piles of stones. The cadets had to take care to avoid tripping but otherwise it was not particularly difficult and the hard areas made a change to walking on the sand.

  A faint glow now outlined the treetops behind their left shoulders and just before 11pm a half moon began to rise. This made everything ahead a pale silvery colour with an illusion of no depth while behind them the rocks and trees were a jumble of stark silhouettes.

  Graham kept counting his paces and was annoyed to find that Livingstone, who was supposed to be check counting, had lost count and forgotten without telling him. The water forced them over until they came to the trees lining the south bank. The moonlight provided a dapple of light and shade but it was bright enough for Graham to see where they were.

  He had been in this area the previous year so knew where to go. A vehicle track - the usual two wheel ruts - led under the trees and up a grassy bank to a level area dotted with t
horn bushes, then up again to the top of a levee bank. The cadets trudged up this in silence except for the panting of their breath.

  Underfoot the surface changed from white sand to a grey powder of dust which muffled their footsteps completely but which rose in a fine cloud to tickle nostrils and throats. On top of the bank they came to a gate in a barbed wire fence and passed through. The distant hum of vehicles on the highway became a distinct background noise.

  Walsh suddenly gasped and jumped back. “Strewth!” he cried.

  A large black animal had risen with a grunt from the grass. It went crashing off through the thorn bushes. Fear dried Graham’s throat. Pig or bullock?

  “What was it Walshy?” Graham asked, shifting the stick into a defensive posture in sweaty hands.

  “Big pig I think - not sure,” Walsh replied. The wild pigs in the area grew to two metres in length and weighed up to 150 kg. Graham had heard stories of people being ripped to death by them.

  Livingstone snickered. “I’ll bet you shit yerself then Walshy,” he commented. Graham turned to rebuke him and saw that he had slipped back through the gate.

  Walsh just grunted with annoyance. Graham said: “It’s gone. Let’s get a move on.” They set off at a fast walk, warily eyeing the long dry grass and dark shadows under the thorn bushes. These formed an almost continuous belt on both sides of the track for half a kilometre. Nothing more was heard of the animal.

  The track went up onto a bare, overgrazed hill dotted with thorn bushes and a few ironbarks. The surface changed to a mixture of sand and pebbles. Lights came into view from cars on the highway and from the houses and shop of Bunyip Bend. It took another ten minutes of solid walking across a gentle grassy valley before they stopped behind long grass growing along a fence a hundred metres from the roadhouse.

  The Roadhouse was a blaze of lights. Graham noted there was a petrol pump, public telephone box and a solitary streetlight. As he watched a large green semi-trailer pulled out with a roar and grinding of gears and vanished into the night. The shop appeared to be open but no-one was in sight. There was a house to their left on their side of the highway but it was in darkness. A single lighted window showed over in the direction of the railway. Graham checked his watch and saw that it was 11.20pm.