The Cadet Under-Officer

by Christopher Cummings

  At that point they were 300 metres from the Mast Hill. The sun was so low that all of their side of the hill was now in shadow. Between them and the hill were scattered piles of rocks and a few small trees. The right flank was flat open bush with no grass or undergrowth to speak of. Roger’s group was somewhere down the creek to the left but a low crest hid them.

  Graham lined his group out in extended line and had them take cover, then walked forward alone. If there was someone there he wasn’t going to risk even one of his cadets. He just walked quickly, rifle ready, from rock pile to rock pile and in five minutes was safely climbing the rugged eastern slope. The hill was much smaller than it had looked - the dwarf acacias had created an optical illusion - and in another three minutes he was crouched among the big boulders near the top.

  At his signal Margaret led the other three forward. On top there was a sandy dip which angled off down, with a rough vehicle track in it - then twenty metres away a line of rocks forming in places a natural breastwork with gaps in it. In the centre was a sheet of flat rock about 5 metres across. The radio mast was set up on this.

  Graham scouted quickly. Beyond the next line of rocks the hill sloped down for 50 metres to a small rocky knoll, then down a relatively bare slope to the huts of the mining camp about 200 metres away. The buildings looked alarmingly close but there were plenty of small trees to provide cover. No one was in sight. It was 1835. ‘Only about half an hour to last light,’ Graham thought, noting that the sun was already down on the tree tops on the western horizon. Satisfied it was safe he signalled the others to join him.

  “Cpl Lake, you and Rosemary and ‘Cactus’ go down to those rocks as sentry. Watch both sides. Come straight back if someone heads this way. Hodgins and I will deal with this.”

  Margaret nodded. She was really pleased with this mark of confidence as it gave her the most forward post, closest to the enemy. She led the two cadets forward, keeping in cover as much as she could. The CUO and his signaller then turned their attention to the radio mast.

  It was a steel lattice thing about ten metres high with aerials at the top. It was resting on a concrete block. Steel wire guy ropes led down to rock bolts on four sides. A black insulated cable snaked up along the ground and went up the mast.

  “What do we do Hodgins?” Graham asked. He had a working grasp of aerials for the VHF radios the cadets used but thought this was most likely a HF arrangement. He felt sure it was and cursed his ignorance. Hodgins, even though he had done a six day signals course, wasn’t much help, just agreeing.

  “Well, will just cutting the cable do?” Graham asked.

  Hodgins shrugged. “Might. As long as they aren’t transmitting. If it’s a powerful transmitter you could get an electric shock,” he said.

  They both eyed the black cable as though it was a poisonous snake. Graham reasoned that if the crooks spoke to aeroplanes over the Coral Sea or in the Solomons or where ever it had to be powerful alright. He took out the wire cutters and saw they had no insulation on the handles. Then he thought of shooting the cable or of cutting it with the hacksaw.

  Hodgins pointed. “Could you wedge them and push with your boot sir. That’s got a rubber sole,” he suggested.

  That seemed a good idea. Graham opened the wire cutters and put the cable in the jaws, then wedged the bottom handle in a crack in the rocks. Carefully he pressed on the top handle with his boot. It slipped sideways.

  Hodgins bent and looked. “It cut it a bit sir.”

  So it had. Graham set the cutters up again and this time stamped his boot hard. The cutters bit deep but didn’t quite get through. But bare copper wires were visible. Encouraged he tried again.

  “Here Hodgins, take the hacksaw and cut that guy wire,” Graham ordered. Then he knelt and grabbed the cable and began to flex it backwards and forwards. Hodgins began sawing on the steel wire rope. The saw made a sharp screeching noise in the still evening air.

  A shout of alarm sounded. Graham looked and glimpsed men running amongst the buildings. ‘We’ve been seen,’ he told himself. Then he realized it was no good just cutting the cable. ‘The crooks can just splice it,’ he thought. Now anxious to be gone he grabbed the cutters in his hand and took the risk. Grunting with effort he squeezed and the cable was cut. Then he ran down slope fifty paces and grabbed the cable again.

  A shot rang out and the bullet whined viciously off the rocks. Margaret’s .22 cracked in reply and sent the crooks to cover but drew attention to her. Graham glanced at her and yelled, “Pull your section back Cpl Lake. Take them to the crest behind us.” He was in a lather of sweat now and had to wipe his hands. Using all his strength he squeezed the cutters and the cable parted. “Ow!” he cried, feeling the sharp bite of electricity. The shock caused him to drop the pliers but he scooped them up again.

  Margaret, Rosemary and Cactus came scrambling back, keeping the small knoll between them and the enemy. As they ran Cactus tripped and fell on some apparently flat rock.

  Graham glanced across at him. “You ok, Cactus?”

  The cadet got up and continued running as though nothing had happened. Margaret ran past after Graham, followed by Rosemary. For a moment Graham admired Rosemary and nodded his approval. ‘She’s a bloody good cadet,’ he thought. Meanwhile Hodgins continued sawing like a madman.

  Crack! Another bullet went past. Graham grabbed his rifle and the forty metres of cable and ran up behind some rocks near Hodgins. Once there he turned and took up a fire position. To his annoyance he found he was looking almost directly into what was left of the sun but could see at least five men running up the lower slope of the hill. They were shouting and shooting but the shots were mostly going high. Graham steadied himself and aimed near one of the men.

  Bang! The roar of the heavy rifle shattered the stillness and the echo washed around the hills. The men all vanished into cover. A glance over his shoulder told Graham that Hodgins had cut one guy wire. He ran to a second and started sawing in a frenzy. Margaret’s .22 snapped off to the right. Bargheese’s voice came clearly to them, easily distinguishable by his Indian accent. He sounded very agitated. Graham grinned.

  A bullet smacked into the rock near him so close he was hit by rock chips. Waves of hot and cold fear went over him. He fired back, noting that the men were starting to work forward from cover to cover - not proper fire and movement, but, because he did not dare hit one, effective enough. Another bullet hit the tower near Hodgins. It struck sparks and ricocheted to the rocks and spun to a smoking standstill with an angry buzz. Graham ejected his spent cartridge case. The brass twinkled red in the last rays of the sun as it bounced and tinkled down amongst the rocks.

  Hodgins cut the second wire. But the mast still stood. “Cpl Lake, back to the next line of rocks and get ready to cover us,” Graham shouted. “Come here Hodgins!”

  As soon as he saw Margaret and her cadets moving Graham raced over to a third wire and grabbed it. He was fully exposed as he did this and heard a bullet crack by awfully close. To try to topple the tower he pulled on the cable with all his might. Hodgins grabbed the fourth guy wire and did likewise. The tower swayed and trembled but didn’t fall.

  More bullets hit the rocks.

  “Come on. Give it up. Run!” Graham cried. He and Hodgins bolted off the rock ledge, behind the line of rocks, across the dip and up. To cover them Margaret fired twice, the snap of the .22 almost insignificant. Graham scrambled through a gap in the rocks beside her. As he did he threw the piece of cable into a deep cleft.

  “Down the hill Cpl Lake, back to those rocks half way to the creek. Spread your people out there,” he said. She nodded and he grinned at her approvingly. She, Rosemary and Cactus began scrambling down the rocky slope in the twilight. Graham turned in time to see a figure appear near the mast. Graham fired and the bullet skittered sparks across the flat rock and sang off viciously into the air. The man dived out of sight.

  Hodgins fired as well. Suddenly a yell made Graham look behind. It was Cactus. He was ju
mping down from rock to rock as though he was a rock wallaby and had lost his balance on a big boulder. For a moment he teetered there and looked as though he had regained his balance but to Graham’s horror he somersaulted forward. With a yell of fright he fell down to land flat on his back on another large boulder. Then he sat up, shaking his head and obviously disoriented. Margaret scrambled over to him and, grabbing his webbing, hauled him to his feet and got him moving down the slope. Cactus didn’t seem to have broken anything.

  By then several more men had reached the other line of rocks and were shooting, their muzzle flashes stabbing brightly in the dusk. Bullets ricocheted in all directions. Graham fired once then set off down the slope as fast as he could go, waving Hodgins to do likewise. As he bounded down, taking real risks of broken ankles or bones, Graham saw Margaret running in the gloom across the sandy flat towards some rocks.

  Even as Graham looked Cactus tripped - God only knew what on - and pitched over onto his back. Again Margaret hauled him up and they scrambled into cover. Her rifle fired almost at once and the light bullet sang past to smack the rocks at the top where Graham had just come from. He was frightened now, his back to the enemy and thinking he had left his run too late.

  He and Hodgins reached the bottom and began racing across the flat. It was almost dark and although several shots were fired at them none came near. Margaret fired six times to cover them. They dived behind rocks and looked back.

  As they did there was a burst of gunfire in the distance down the creek. ‘Roger’s roadblock,’ Graham decided, his anxiety shooting up. The enemy on the hill paused and Bargheese could be heard shouting. The hill was just a stark black silhouette with the red glow of the sunset behind it. Several figures could be seen skylined.

  A figure appeared on a large rock near the top. Bargheese! Graham aimed as best he could in the fading light and fired. The bullet struck the rock and made the Indian cry out in fear and jump out of sight. Graham called out.

  “Bargheese, this is CUO Kirk. I want to talk to you,” he shouted

  There was silence for a moment. Then a shot sounded in the distance and there were voices on the hill.

  “What do you want?”

  “Let my two cadets go and we will withdraw and allow you to escape.”

  “They are hostages. If you don’t withdraw I will torture them and kill them,” Bargheese replied.

  Graham went cold with horror. “If you harm them Bargheese, I will personally kill you - and your men. You won’t live to see the sun come up. I’m not the police. Tell your crooked security men that too. If the police catch them they’ll just go to jail but if those kids are hurt I will hunt them to death.”

  His answer was a burst of obscenities but there was no more shooting from the hill and Graham was sure his words had gone home. ‘Bargheese and his men must be feeling like rats in a trap,’ Graham mused. One of the things which convinced Graham the enemy was rattled was the fact that Bargheese hadn’t mentioned the brown notebook.

  It was almost dark by this. 1900hrs. Graham doubted if Bargheese’s gang would follow them in the dark but he took no chances. The patrol lay for a full twenty minutes waiting with rifles ready. The silence was broken only by the gentle sighing of a breeze in the tree tops.

  Then Graham walked quietly along to check they were all ok and that their safety catches were on. Cactus said he was a bit sore. Graham himself was in a state of excitement close to euphoria. He was forced to admit he had loved every moment. ‘Even though we had to withdraw we’ve hit the enemy again,’ he thought. He felt they had won and had given the crooks another bad shock.

  ‘Now I will rattle their cage a bit more!’ he thought.

  CHAPTER 34

  ROGER’S ROADBLOCK

  Satisfied that enemy hadn’t continued to advance down the hill Graham turned his thoughts to his next move. Common sense said he should withdraw all his people and take them out of harm’s way, but his blood was up and he didn’t want to abandon Morrow and Anderson. He also hoped the police would arrive soon.

  That led him to worry about Walsh and Wallis back at the Dry creek and about the fact that there was at least a 500 metre gap between his group and Sgt Dunning’s roadblock through which any number of enemy could penetrate in the dark. He thought this unlikely and remembered Captain Conkey’s injunction that ‘Depth’ was vital in defence; and that the fewer troops you had the better it was to deploy forward - to meet the enemy well out. He hoped Bargheese’s mind was concentrated on him or the roadblock and not on Whaleback Hill.

  The CUO checked his safety catch was on, then went along the line quietly to ensure all the other weapons were safe too. ‘I don’t want an accident,’ he thought. He was already feeling guilty for having exposed them to the risk of being shot. Satisfied all weapons were on safe he led the group silently back. It was quite dark by this but there was enough starlight for them to avoid stumbling on rocks or walking into trees. It took a few minutes to locate Walsh and Wallis who were both mightily relieved. They had nothing to report except that they’d been very worried at all the shooting. They’d only seen glimpses of movement on the hill but not enough to understand what was happening.

  Graham nodded. “It’s a pity we didn’t knock down that tower but I think we stirred them up,” he said.

  Walsh sounded puzzled. “Didn’t knock it down? But we saw it fall and nearly cheered aloud.”

  “Are you sure?” Graham turned and looked. The black mass of Mast Hill stood up clear against the evening sky but it was too dark to make out if the radio mast was there or not.

  Walsh replied: “Course I’m sure. We saw it fall didn’t we Superbabble?” He sounded indignant at not being believed. Cadet Wallis agreed. This cheered Graham up. They had succeeded!

  Graham considered his next move. ‘Back to the platoon,’ he decided. The platoon needed to eat and rest and he needed time to plan. He decided to send Margaret’s section back up Whaleback Hill. ‘Otherwise I will be trying to get orders to three widely separated groups and then lose control,’ he thought. For a minute or so he considered leaving a listening post beside the airfield road at the bottom of the hill but decided the risk to them of a close range encounter in the dark wasn’t worth the added security it might give.

  He gave Margaret orders to take her whole section back up the hill to eat.

  “Cooking fires?” she asked.

  ‘The enemy have probably guessed we are still on the hill,’ Graham thought. “One hexi stove only and down in that hollow. And as soon as your people have eaten take over two sentry posts from Cpl Sheehan and Cpl Halyday with two of you at each post,” he replied.

  “Where are you going?” Margaret asked, her concern clear in her voice and in the lack of a ‘sir’.

  “Just to see what went on at the roadblock. Then we’ll come up. I’ll take Hodgins with me. We’ll be alright. Get going,” Graham replied, touched by her concern.

  The two were crouching close together in the dark whispering and Margaret had to restrain herself from reaching out. She didn’t want to make a fool of herself and knew instinctively he didn’t need any more emotional disturbance if he was to continue making clear decisions. She gathered her squad and after a few whispered instructions including a reminder about the password, led them off towards the black shape of the hill.

  The CUO and his Sig set off through the bush between the dry creek and airfield track. They moved silently and neither spoke a word till they reached the junction with the gravel road ten minutes later. The creek was 50 metres to the right at this point. To prevent any misunderstanding Graham walked down the middle of the gravel road, his boots crunching lightly to ensure he was heard by the roadblock.

  A soft challenge came out of the inky blackness. “Halt! Hands up! Bunyip.”

  “Boar. It’s me, CUO Kirk,” Graham replied.

  Roger replied. “Thank God for that. Come on in,” he said, the relief plain in his voice. As Graham joined him at the top of the dip he saw
a large truck parked at an odd angle on the slight slope down to the bed of Dry Creek. The truck completely blocked the road. Graham was so busy looking at it he didn’t see the tree trunks dragged across the road and barked his shins painfully and nearly fell over.

  “Er...mind the step!” Roger said.

  “Bloody....mumble...mumble.... What on earth is the truck doing here?”

  Roger explained. Just after the shooting began on Mast Hill it came driving out of the mining camp at a great speed. The driver obviously didn’t see the trees across the road till he was down in the creek bed and as it was only three small ironbarks he’d tried to drive over them. Because he’d hesitated before accelerating he hadn’t made it. He’d then stopped and engaged his lowest gear and all wheel drive. (It was a 5 tonne 6x6). Roger and his group had shown themselves and yelled warnings but the man ignored them so a large stone was used to shatter his windscreen.

  This had made the truck roll back down to the bottom of the creek bed and the driver had produced a shotgun and fired. This caused them all to scramble for cover and then he’d ‘gunned it’ up the slope. As he did Roger had fired back with a shotgun blast through his radiator and into the engine. The truck had stalled on top of the logs and the man had thrown out his gun and surrendered. When they got him out of the truck they’d found he was the storeman and that he was ‘getting out while the goin’ was good!’ The man had been quite stunned to find the roadblock and to be shot at.

  Roger took the storeman’s shotgun (double barrel breech loader and one cartridge) and told him to walk back to the mine camp and not try to sneak through the bush as there were armed troops all along the creek. To prove this he’d called out to Lazarus and Livingstone who were off in the bush on either side and they had called out. “That, plus what sounded to us like the remake of ‘Gallipoli’ on Mast Hill, quite convinced the man,” Roger added with a chuckle. “He bolted back to the buildings. Then we searched the truck and found the man’s personal possessions, some boxes of food and expensive looking tools and spare parts.”