The Cadet Under-Officer

by Christopher Cummings

  Falls was waiting. Bargheese joined him and gave quick instructions. “We’ve caught a woman. She’s an accomplice of some sort but she won’t talk. She had the briefcase but a lot of the stuff is still missing. The brown notebook was not in it. We’ve got to narrow down her movements so get around and find out if anyone has seen her in the area,” he said. He described Sandra and the details of her car.

  “Also check if Amos visited any of our check points last night. I think the rat has deserted the sinking ship but we need to be sure. I’m heading off into town to try to steer the police to search somewhere else today. We’ve got to keep them out of it.”

  Falls looked worried. “I don’t like it Mr Bargheese. If the girl had help from a woman with a car she could have other friends in the know. Maybe we should be thinking of getting’ goin’ ourselves?”

  Bargheese leaned forward and hissed: “Listen you fool, if we don’t find that brown notebook we are dead men. Even if the police get us first we will still die in jail by some ‘accident’. If the woman was on her way to Townsville last night then I don’t think the police know anything yet. Even if the girl has friends or a safe hideout they won’t be expecting any action by the authorities until sometime later in the morning. We’ve got a few hours yet. We’ve got to find that girl - or the brown notebook. We must!”

  Falls resented the insults and threats but swallowed them out of fear. “What about this search these cadets are organizing. You still want that to go ahead? They’re giving their orders in about five minutes time.”

  Bargheese thought for a moment. ‘That might give a good reason to keep the police out of the area,’ he thought. ‘If I can say there were 150 cadets combing the area already as well as the mine personnel.’ He nodded. “Yes. Let it go ahead. Go back and listen to their plans and ensure they look where we want. Then get around and check your people while I go to town. I’ll try to be back within an hour and we will start on all the homesteads and farms again. Keep Murphy here with you.”

  Bargheese returned to the helicopter. Ten to eight. The helicopter lifted off and set off following the highway to Charters Towers. Vyajana was waiting with his car when they landed. Randall was told to wait.

  Vyakana looked very anxious. “Mr Bargheese, I have been to Mr Watton’s house and there is nobody there. There is fresh milk on the doorstep, a newspaper on the front path but no-one answers and his car is not there,” he said, rubbing his long, thin fingers together in concern.

  Run out! Bargheese just grunted. No more time to waste. “Take me to the police station. We will worry about the manager later.”

  As they drove the quiet streets Bargheese’s mind was racing. He had an awful sensation of sinking, of his plans coming unstuck. In near desperation he forced himself to rehearse what he would explain to the police.

  He need not have bothered. The police were too interested in their own problems to worry much about the search.

  “Place is going mad!” the uniformed Senior Sergeant said as he led Bargheese to the inspector’s office. “First your thieves, then yesterday all those cattle stolen from Maloney’s - broad daylight! Over three hundred head and we dunno yet whether they were taken by truck or droved, or even if they ever existed; and now we’ve had a semi-trailer full of frozen prawns crash just outa town and half the bloody population’s there tryin’ ter salvage part of the load! I dunno!” Still grumbling he knocked and led the way in.

  The inspector was speaking on the phone. He nodded them to chairs. He had just arrived and had rushed his breakfast and wasn’t in the best of tempers. “Look Mr Bargheese, we need all our uniformed men for a few hours. I’m sorry but the roadblocks must go and I can’t let your people start holding up vehicles on a public highway.”

  Bargheese agreed with this. It suited his plans. He didn’t think the girl would try to escape by road now. ‘She probably won’t know the roadblocks are gone, even if she knew they were there!’ he thought. Quickly he agreed. This mollified the policemen and the senior sergeant went out to have them radioed at once to come in.

  The inspector went on, “This whole question of the missing girl has got to change. Her parents were in yesterday afternoon and they’ve been onto HQ in Townsville and the local member of parliament and the press and what we’ve got to do now is change the emphasis from catching a possible thief to finding someone lost in the bush to save a life. I’m getting ten extra men from Townsville sometime this morning, plus a police helicopter and after lunch we will start a real ground search. I’m calling in the State Emergency Service and volunteers. Will your people still help?”

  “Of course, Inspector. All our resources are at your disposal,” Bargheese replied. He then outlined the search plan using the cadets as well as his own men, all the time conscious things were going against him. Lunchtime! Only a few hours!

  The inspector nodded. “Cadets eh! Yeah. Knew they were in the area. That’s a good idea. We’ll work them into our search plan. That’ll be a big help.”

  Satisfied he had done the best he could and had at least picked up valuable information, Bargheese took his leave. He had Vyajana drive him back to the airport.

  “You go back to the mine and take over on the radio. Check the woman is still a prisoner and warn Evans not to harm her. I will be at the search area,” Bargheese said.

  By ten past nine the helicopter was again airborne and heading North East. As they flew along Bargheese called Falls on the radio. It took a minute to get him.

  “Any luck with your enquiries?” he asked.

  “Maybe. Charlie over at the turnoff to the army camp thinks he might have seen a car answering the description early last night,” Falls replied.

  Something moved in Bargheese’s memory and he seemed to get a mental image of a jigsaw puzzle which wasn’t quite complete - or a broken picture not quite in focus. That woman! A sudden, cold chill gripped him. “Meet me there! Five minutes. Bring Martinez and Berzinski. Leave Murphy with the cadets!”

  The Bunyip River swept beneath them and then they were passing Bare Ridge. Bargheese looked down at the area where he had chased the girl. ‘I have to check something,’ he thought, ‘and then I will go back and get the truth out of that woman - by Evans’ methods if need be!’

  There was plenty of open space beside the turnoff to the army camp. The camp itself appeared totally deserted from the air. The helicopter landed and Bargheese jumped out and ran over to where the huge dumptruck was parked. Two miners were sitting in the shade and watched with interest as he jumped a fence and ran over to them.

  “Who’s Charlie? Who saw the white car? Describe the woman!”

  The men were astonished at his vehemence but at once described how Sandra had driven into the camp in uniform late in the afternoon. They weren’t sure of the time but about sunset - and how she had driven out after dark - about sevenish they agreed - in civvies - white sort of dress.

  Was she the lady Officer of Cadets? Bargheese struggled to remember. It was a bitter thought that the girl might have been within his grasp two days ago. But why should that woman hide her? And how had she done it? What was the link?

  Falls and his men arrived at that moment. Bargheese stood for a moment trying to piece together what might have happened and wondering if the girl was hidden in the army camp. These miners hadn’t searched the car. They weren’t roadblocks, only lookouts. ‘If she is in the army camp then how can I possibly find her?’ he wondered. It was a restricted area, Commonwealth military property with a guard. The game seemed lost. But how had she got there? Had the woman hidden her, then put her in her car and driven her there? But why? How could the girl have possibly convinced her in a minute or two to hide her - even if she did know her and teach her?

  “Something needs checking. Martinez, drive the vehicle to the top of the rise, Falls and Berzinski come with me. Guns, bring guns,” he snapped. He ignored the two mine workers who stood gaping as rifles and a submachine gun were pulled out of the vehicle.


  Bargheese ran along the railway, retracing his course that first morning. The others followed, looking mystified but sensing his savage mood. ‘Now I have the scent,’ he thought. ‘But am I right?’

  By the time they reached the point at which Bargheese had spotted the girl running towards the highway they were gasping for breath and had slowed to a walk.

  Bargheese pointed and called back, “Berzinski, we are going to retrace that girl’s track. I want you to move to there, across those gullies, then...” He described how and when he wanted the security man to move. Berzinski jumped the fence and set off. Being fit he moved quickly and was soon near the last gully before the highway, almost where Bargheese had seen her. There he stopped and looked back.

  Bargheese waved his arm. “Come on!” he called, vaulting the fence, almost twisting his ankle as he landed. Falls clambered over and managed to catch his trousers on a barb. “Fat fool!” Bargheese muttered to himself. He followed his own tracks as well as he could remember. As he came out of the first gully he waved and Berzinski crawled under the fence beside the highway - yes, almost exactly there she’d been.

  Bargheese came up out of the next gully and waved again. Berzinski crawled under the fence on the other side of the highway. ‘The Landcruiser driven by Martinez pulled up there,’ Bargheese remembered. Another gully. Berzinski had stopped a hundred paces into the trees. Too far to the right. Bargheese signalled with his arm till Berzinski was in the right area. Then he jumped the fence and recognized the place where Falls’ vehicle had stopped that day, only a few metres from where it was now.

  Falls joined him. Berzinski stood two hundred metres away amongst the trees, clearly visible.

  “Falls, you go to where Berzinski is and I will direct you where to go. Martinez, you were the one who came with me that first day. You follow the same track you did then.” They walked to the fence. Bargheese and Martinez waited while Falls climbed over and walked up to where Berzinski stood.

  ‘Now, This is where I had lost sight of the girl, as I went under the fence,’ Bargheese thought. He said: “Watch which way Falls goes, then follow.” He waved, then crawled under the fence in the same place as previously. Quickly he stood up and looked. Falls had gone diagonally to the left. Berzinski had gone on up the slope and was still clearly visible. Martinez joined him.

  Bargheeze pointed up the slope. “You went up there, where Berzinski is?”

  Martinez nodded. “Yeah. In fact you can nearly see all the way up to where those cadets was camped. I walked straight up to their tents.”

  So the girl had gone left! Bargheese set off again in that direction at a brisk walk. After two hundred paces he could still see Berzinski who was almost at the top of the slope. He could also see the open bush on Sandy Ridge. Bargheese shook his head. ‘She couldn’t have gone that way,’ he reasoned.

  A shallow dip ran off to the left, back towards the highway, deepening into a small gully as it went. Falls stood in it waiting. ‘She must have gone down this gully,’ Bargheese decided. It was the only way she could have stayed out of sight.

  “That was what I thought at the time,” Bargheese muttered. ‘I followed this gully - only to meet the Cadet Under-Officer who had said he had seen no girl and who was very helpful. Perhaps too helpful?’ Suspicion grew in his mind. ‘If the girl had crossed from this gully to the next one she would have had to go up that slight rise. I would have seen her,’ he noted. He called Berzinski to join them and walked down the gully.

  They came to where it joined the small sandy creek. No doubt about the place, the sand was still marked by boot prints. Bargheese stopped where he thought he had been when speaking to the boy. He made Martinez stand where the CUO had been standing. Then he shut his eyes and tried to remember exactly what he had seen and what had been said.

  The boy had looked surprised and a little frightened but as Bargheese had come running out of the bush with a pistol in his hand that was natural enough. He had said, “A girl!”

  “Yes, a girl, in a purple skirt and white blouse,” or was it the other way round? It didn’t matter! ‘I described her clothes,’ Bargheese remembered.

  The boy had sounded and looked astonished and replied, “No.”

  Bargheese had then looked over his uniform to overcome his own surprise and asked who he was.

  “Cadet Under-Officer Kirk. Who are you?” the youth had replied, very haughty. Arrogant young pup! At that moment he had seen a second cadet coming down the creek. ‘There was no way the girl could have gone that way and not been seen by that other cadet, who had also denied seeing a girl - no, he hadn’t said that. He’d said only..only.. he’d stuttered and mentioned a name.’ Bargheese couldn’t remember the name but did remember his own surprise at finding she had been a girl cadet. Bargheese remembered that as he had not known girls could be cadets, much less expected to find this gully crawling with them!

  So what happened? ‘I was less than a minute behind the girl, except that I ran further up the slope, then backtracked down the gully,’ he thought. The mystery gnawed at Bargheese. He could feel the answer was there but it was tantalizingly out of sight.

  He remembered the girl cadet coming into sight around the bend in the creek. When she had arrived he had noted she was a big, busty blonde whereas the girl he was hunting was a brunette. Next he had looked around the open grassy flat and across to Bare Ridge and remembered again how astonished he was to find all these cadets in this apparently deserted piece of bush. The CUO had pointed up the little valley to where there had been another group of cadets at a small rocky outcrop. The boy had said something like, “Go and ask the others,” and had mentioned there was a lady Officer of Cadets up there.

  Suddenly the picture cleared. ‘It was her! I went and spoke to her!’ Now the face came back to him. ‘It was her! Lieutenant McEwen. Sandra Fiona McEwen. Lady teacher!’ Bargheese realized he had been baffled the previous night because when he’d seen her before she’d been in an army uniform, wearing a hat and dark glasses.

  “She was there!” he cried exultantly. The others looked at him.

  “Who?” Falls asked.

  “The woman we caught last night! She was the officer up there: McEwen. A teacher from Cairns. The girl came from Cairns,” Bargheese cried.

  “Cairns!” Falls echoed. “Oh yeah, these cadets come from Cairns.”

  Bargheese turned and looked at him incredulously. “You know that? You are sure? You idiot! When did you find that out?” His anger spilled over into abuse.

  That made Falls angry as well and he shouted back. “Don’t talk to me like that you ignorant pig! I found it out only a few minutes ago. Saw it on the cover of their Roll Book.”

  Bargheese shut his eyes and forced himself to calm down. The others looked at him tensely. Falls added, “It was something that made me suspicious. That Cadet Under-Officer, the one whose cadets were camped just up here, his platoon came past this morning while we were getting the search orders from the captain and...and...”

  “Go on! What?”

  “The captain asked where McEwen was. Apparently she’d gone somewhere in her car. And the captain hadn’t known that. It didn’t sound important. There was a dispute between the staff sergeant and the Number Four Platoon sergeant about how many ration packs they needed. The staff sergeant, that fat kid, said something like, ‘why do you want another one? There are twenty five rations plus one for the lady’, and the sergeant had insisted he had twenty six. That red-headed bitch who’s the Company Sergeant Major went and got the Company Roll Book as she also said there were only twenty five. She counted the names and she was right. It was when she put the book down I read the name on the cover - Cairns Central Cadet Unit.”

  Bargheese pursed his lips. The pattern was falling into place now. That must be where she was. But how? He looked and there, ten paces in front of him was the log. Into his mind came a picture of a plastic shelter and a litter of army gear - at the log!

  He walked to the log and stepp
ed over it. Then he bent down and doubts became certainties. The girl came from Cairns. The teacher came from Cairns. The Cadet Under-Officer also came from Cairns. ‘He must have known the girl and instantly believed whatever story she had time to tell - then he had hid her here,’ he thought. The marks were in the sand and the others stared in amazement at the white shoe he was holding - a girl’s shoe!

  Realization of how he had been tricked burst on Bargheese, goading him to fury. “Now we know where she is! She is with Number Four Platoon. Where are they Falls? Come on! Martinez, get the vehicle!” Cursing he broke into a run.

  CHAPTER 23

  THE HUNT IS ON

  Company Sergeant Major Barbara Brassington had been brought up by her mother to be a ‘young lady’ but in her frustration she began to mutter words of which her mother would not approve. She was impelled to hurry by the importance of her errand but Cadet Roberts slowed her down. He not only limped slowly but ‘whinged’ as he hobbled along.

  The two of them made their way slowly down the cattle pad to Dingo Creek, then under the fence and back towards the Canning. But even before the first fallen log Roberts insisted he could not walk any further and hinted that it would be easier without his pack or webbing.

  Barbara was sorely tempted to leave Roberts but one of the unit’s rules was that casualties were never left on their own. Nor were cadets to move in the bush on their own. At any moment Barbara expected to meet hurrying NORMAC men and she prepared what she could say to delay them a few minutes to allow 4 Platoon more time to get away. The brown envelope in her map pocket seemed to generate a physical force of its own.

  She cajoled Roberts along but in the stifling heat of the gully he turned a sickly, pasty colour and kept grumbling he was sick.

  Barbara shook her head. “Heat, you blockhead! How much have you drunk this morning - only half a waterbottle - in this heat! What do we teach you? If you’re thirsty you should have drunk an hour ago! Have a big drink,” she snapped. Reluctantly she allowed another stop.